To Reclaim My Own
by R2-M0
Summary: BOOK ?: After the Great Thaw, Elsa and Anna are relearning what it means to be sisters. But the events of Coronation Day have drawn attention to Arendelle from far beyond its borders. As past and present collide, the fate of the kingdom falls upon their shoulders and on the new family they've begun to piece together. Will they be strong enough to save everything that they love?
1. Is, Was, and Ever Shall Be

**A/N: So there are a few things we need to get out of the way before we begin. First: yes, this story is set in the _Falling Snow_ universe, but no, it is not "Book 3." I don't feel ready yet to tackle the depressing events that would be chronicled in that volume, though I may revisit them at some later date. Right now, this is the tale that's been scrabbling at the inside of my brain, eager to be set free. So I've decided to indulge it.**

 **Second: I'm not going to pressure myself this time around to try to meet regular deadlines the way I did for the first two books. That created too much stress and made the whole endeavor feel like a second job. Instead, I'll simply post new chapters whenever they're ready, however long that may take. Hopefully, they'll be worth the wait.**

 **Okay, everybody on the same page now? Right! Then here we go...**

* * *

The narrow band of light seemed frightfully out of place in the darkened room, especially considering that it was cut off from the rest of its kind by the shadow of the slim figure who stood just outside the barely opened doorway. She peered silently into the room, watching as the sheets gently rose and fell in time to the breathing of its sole occupant. In the dim light, she could just barely make out a tangle of red hair upon the pillow.

Queen Elsa of Arendelle, the most powerful person in the kingdom in more ways than one, nevertheless felt completely enfeebled. It was a feeling she'd come to know well during her many years of isolation and self-doubt. Today, however, it had bitten all the more deeply because it hadn't merely been herself that she had disappointed. She had been totally and completely unable to help her best friend, and she hated herself for it. She was so utterly tired of letting Anna down.

She supposed it had started shortly after everything else had. After all, there was a line in her life so sharp and bright that everything before it felt in some way as though it belonged to an entirely different person. In a single moment, everything had changed. Now there was no going back – or at least if there was, she had absolutely no desire to ever travel that road. Instead, she would fight with her last breath to keep hold of everything that her life had unexpectedly become.

The people had already taken to calling it The Great Thaw. In Elsa's mind, though, the return of summer had been far from the most important change that had taken place on that day. Seasons came and went every single year. The weather could change from one day to the next. But how often in a lifetime does the chance come to start anew? How often does something you thought you had lost forever suddenly reappear, bringing with it promises of new hope and new beginnings?

Afterward, she and Anna had found themselves with a lifetime of catching up to do.

• • •

"Oh, Elsa! I'm so sorry!"

"Wait, what? Sorry? No, no, no. You don't need to apologize to me. I'm trying to apologize to you! It was my fault that I couldn't control my magic. If I'd been able to, then none of this would ever have happened and..."

"You were trying to catch me, Elsa! Don't you see? You were just trying to protect me like you always did, because I was always running off to try whatever crazy thing had just come into my head!"

"You mean like getting engaged to a man that you only just met?"

Anna scowled for a moment at the reminder that, at least in some ways, she hadn't changed all that much since her younger days. Then something struck her, and her face brightened back up again immediately. "Yes, exactly! And what did you do when I told you about it? You tried to stop me. You were watching out for me, just like you always have. Just like you were that night!

"You said that I kept jumping higher, wanting to go faster. Well if I hadn't been so reckless, then you wouldn't have even needed to try and save me. For that matter, if I hadn't dragged you out of bed in the middle of the night in the first place..."

"You didn't drag me anywhere, Anna. Well, okay, you did, but not because I didn't want to come. Anyway, the point I was making was that I never should have made those snow piles so high in the first place. Or I should have just made one into a slide instead and let you come back down safely. There were any number of things I could have done, but instead I let the situation get completely out of hand, and you were the one who had to pay for my carelessness."

"I don't know about that. Hiding yourself away from the entire world for thirteen years seems like an awfully big price to me. I mean, it's certainly far worse than just having to put up with a goofy blonde streak in my hair that whole time."

Anna's hand rose up to finger her right braid. "Honestly though, in a way, I sort of miss it, and not just because I'd gotten used to it over the years. I mean after all, you can get used to a lot of things eventually. Like the smell of wet reindeer! Of course, that's one thing I might not miss all that much. Oh, but please don't tell Sven I said that. Or Kristoff. Not that Kristoff smells like wet reindeer, mind you. Well, not always. Okay, he kind of does sometimes, along with a few other things I haven't been quite able to pin down yet. But they aren't bad smells, really, they're just rather unusual and… Um...

"I think I had a point somewhere in there, but I kind of lost it."

Elsa smiled gently. "You were saying about the stripe in your hair?"

"Oh, right! Well, I never knew where it came from, naturally, but – and this is going to sound so silly – I always secretly thought of it as a bit of you that I got to carry around with me. During all those years that I barely got to see you, it was like I could at least catch a glimpse of you if I just looked at that streak. It helped me feel like we were still close, even when we weren't."

Elsa blinked in surprise, because she found that she didn't know what to say in response to such an admission. For her, every time she had seen the mark that her powers had left upon her sister, it had served as a reminder of her failure and shame. That Anna had viewed it as a memento of their happier times together was such a completely discordant notion that it sent Elsa's mind reeling.

"Really," Anna continued wistfully, "it's a shame that your magic wiped out my memories of that night. It would have been so much simpler for everyone if I'd just known what happened and why you felt like you had to go into hiding the way you did. But then again, I suppose in a way that was probably something of a relief, wasn't it? After all, you'd done such a good job hiding your magic from me up until that point. At least you knew that your secret was safe again and…

"Elsa? Elsa, what's wrong?"

The look of distress on the queen's face actually appeared to be bordering on panic. Her hands were gripping the arms of her chair far too tightly… and tendrils of frost were spreading from beneath her fingers, crawling across the wood like a living thing.

Elsa didn't even notice until her sister's eyes fixed upon it. Then she looked down and, feeling a new wave of embarrassment surging up within her, quickly crossed her arms and thrust her hands into her armpits. "Sorry," she said nervously. "My control really has gotten better lately, but it still slips now and then, particularly when I'm anxious or… Anyway, it's something that I still need to work on a little."

Anna, apparently unwilling to break the established cycle of the conversation, quickly attempted to override this apology. "No, no, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to upset you. That is, assuming I upset you. Well, it must have been me, right? Who else could it have been? We're the only ones here. Whatever it was, I didn't mean to do it or say it or… I mean, if it bothers you that much, I'll try not to do it again. Or say it. But since I'm not entirely sure what 'it' is, it might be a little hard to avoid it, if you know what I mean."

Elsa's eyes searched her sister's face. "You really don't know, do you?"

"Of course I don't. That's what I was just saying."

The queen took a few deep, steadying breaths, working to calm herself. Closing her eyes briefly, she let her mind fill with the notes of a piece of music that she had listened to so often over the years, she would not have been surprised if someone told her that she hummed it in her sleep. After a few seconds, she felt her calm return, felt the magic recede. Only then did she open her eyes again and look at her sister.

"Anna, it wasn't my magic that erased your memories."

"Of course it was! You said it hit me in the head, right? That has to be why I can't remember much of anything about that night."

"But you didn't let me finish. It didn't end there. Anna, you weren't moving. You were cold as ice, and… and I didn't know what to do. I cried out for help, and Mother and Father came, and... Well, the next thing I knew, they'd bundled you up in a blanket, rushed us both out to the stables, and then we all set off out of the castle gates at full gallop.

"I'd never been more terrified in my entire life. I had no idea what was happening or where we were going. Father was holding on to me with one arm and Mother was carrying you, and I kept trying to catch a glimpse of you, hoping that I'd see you open your eyes or something. In my head, I apologized to you a thousand times during that ride. All I could think was that instead of saving you, I might have… I thought that I had… that you were..."

"But I wasn't, Elsa. I got better, right?"

Elsa's head twitched in what might have been a nod, but her eyes fell away from her sister's face. "We finally reached the trolls' hollow, though of course I didn't know what it was at first. It was the only place Father could think of where there was a chance of finding someone who knew anything about magic."

The conclusion was obvious. "Grand Pabbie! Oh, I didn't even know! I'll have to get Kristoff to take me back there again so I can thank him properly."

"Yes. He managed to save your life by drawing the magic out of your head. But in order to be sure, he had to remove it all. Everything. Even… even your memories of magic."

"My memories?" Now it was Anna's turn to look puzzled. "Of magic? I don't remember any magic."

"That's the point, Anna. Before that night, I never hid my magic from you. Other than Mother and Father, you were the only other person who knew what I could do. And you were the only one who was never afraid of it. In fact, you were usually begging me to use it any time you thought you had the slightest chance of convincing me." Elsa found herself smiling at the many recollections. "You were always particularly fond of snowball fights in summer."

A frown dragged down the younger woman's face. "Wait, wait, I'm confused. You're saying that I… that we… But I don't… I didn't!"

Elsa's expression turned somber again as she nodded. "Even memories of magic were a danger. That's a big part of why Mother and Father decided to hide my powers from you. They were afraid that, if you ever found out about them, you might suffer a relapse."

Her little sister still hadn't quite managed to move beyond her earlier sticking point, however. "So they just… they let Grand Pabbie erase my memories?"

"No, not erased, exactly. He just… changed them a little, to hide the magic. You still remember us playing together in the snow, don't you? Well, you just don't remember that I made some of that snow, that's all. He said that he left all the fun that we had together."

"But… but we didn't!"

Elsa laughed a little, although it sounded a bit nervous and somewhat uncertain. "Of course we did. Grand Pabbie might be able to tweak memories, but he can't change the past."

"No, don't you see?" Anna's tone had suddenly taken on a particular note of strained seriousness, the kind that suggested she was struggling to keep her real emotions out of her voice for fear that the sound of them might make them all too real. "We didn't do them together anymore! You remember them one way, and I remember them another. They aren't the same! It's like… I don't know. Like we both saw the same play, but we each saw it on a different day. That's not the same as seeing it together.

"And how do I know which ones are real? I mean, some of them must be. We had to have played outside in the winter too, but there's no way for me to tell which of those times I remember actually happened the way I remember them. So even when I think back to one of those, no matter how much fun we might have had, I'll always be left wondering."

A look of dismay darkened Elsa's face. "I shouldn't have even said anything. I didn't think through what this might mean. I just… Anna, after all these years of hiding secrets from you, I wanted you to finally know everything. I thought you deserved that much after all you've had to go through because of me. But maybe I was wrong."

"No. No, you were right. I needed to know. I _want_ to know, because I never want there to be secrets between us ever again. Besides, I don't blame you. It wasn't your decision."

"But if you blame Mother and Father… Anna, that would be just as bad, maybe even worse! I'm not sure I could forgive myself if I thought that I had done something that would tarnish your memories of them."

Her sister's head shook slowly back and forth. "You didn't, Elsa. Not really. I already knew that they'd kept secrets. They never pretended otherwise. It's only now, though, that I'm starting to understand why they did all that they did."

"They were frightened, Anna – almost as much as I was. Maybe they overreacted, I don't know. Sometimes, I tried to imagine myself in their place, tried to decide if I would have acted differently. Then after they… after they were gone, I suppose I _was_ in their place. But I was so scared and overwhelmed that I just continued doing what they had done, because I really didn't know what else to do.

"I do know that they only wanted to protect the both of us. I just think they didn't really know how to go about it. How could they? So they did the best that they could, and yes, they made mistakes." Then she considered all the many apologies they themselves had just finished exchanging. "When it comes right down to it, I suppose we all did."

Anna didn't respond right away. Instead, the two simply sat quietly, each lost in their own contemplations of the past while the ticking of the clock doggedly continued to add to it.

"I'm not really angry," the princess said at last. She spoke slowly, as though she was trying to make sense of her own feelings by putting them into words, neither of which was proving easy for her. "I mean, it's an awful lot to wrap my head around. I guess I figured that, now that I knew about your magic, I had all the answers at last. I wasn't expecting more surprises."

"No one ever does," Elsa replied, managing to bring back a bit of the smile she'd briefly worn earlier, "or they wouldn't be so surprising."

"It's just that I was already sort of struggling to resolve everything that I remembered with what I know now. There was so much that didn't make sense back then, but it was all finally starting to come together. Now I learn that some of those memories didn't even happen the way I remember them at all, and I just..." She paused, then sighed.

"I guess it's too much to ask for things to just be simple for a change. I know it isn't fair, but now it feels like my own mind is keeping secrets from me. And I am so tired of secrets. I wanted to get back to being a family again, the way we used to be, but what I remember us being isn't even exactly what we were.

"In the end, I suppose it isn't such a big deal, really. After all, this means that back then, things were even better than I thought! Back then, nothing was hidden between us. We really did share everything! And that's the way I want us to be now, so I guess I'm a little sad that I don't really know what it was like back when we used to be that way."

"Oh, Anna! I wish you could have your memories back too. If there was anything I could do to restore them, you know that I would in a heartbeat, but I don't know anything about that type of magic. I only..."

That was the precise moment when the obvious solution suddenly thudded into Elsa's brain. At virtually the same instant, she saw a shift in her sister's features that made it clear she was not the only one who'd been privy to a sudden revelation.

Elsa smiled. Anna grinned. And plans were made.

• • •

"Kristoff's home!"

"And he's brought a girl!"

"Two girls! Kristoff, you sly devil!"

"No, no, it's not like that!" The ice harvester held up his hands defensively as the entire troll community rolled up and unfurled themselves around their guests.

"Sure it is! There's Anna and there's Elsa. That's two, isn't it?" Olaf, who was sitting upon Sven's back, leaned in close to the reindeer's ear. "Or don't ice harvesters learn how to count?"

"I can count," Kristoff grumped as he glared at the little snowman.

"Oh. Well, don't you know what a girl is then? Considering you grew up in a family of love experts, I find that rather surprising..."

"Of course, I know what girls are. I also happen to know that it isn't always the wisest term to use beyond a certain age."

"Mm-hmm, uh-huh, right. So how old were you when you stopped using it?"

"Not my age, their age!"

"Who's age?"

"The girls!" Kristoff preemptively began to wince in anticipation of the inevitable reply.

"But you just said..."

"Yes, I know what I said." One hand now covered his eyes and the bridge of his nose as he slowly shook his head.

"Is he always this confused?" Olaf asked.

Sven snorted and rolled his eyes, an expression whose meaning was absolutely unmistakable: "You have no idea."

"Now don't you start," Kristoff snapped at the reindeer. "Look, we'll talk this through later, okay, snowboy? Right now, we're here for a reason. Has anyone seen Grand Pabbie?"

"Anna!" One of the little trollings at the outskirts of the group leaped up into the air in excitement. By the time she came back down, she had curled up and, hitting the ground, took off whirling through the crowd, steadily picking up speed even as she dodged this way and that. At the last minute, when it looked like she was about crash right into the princess's toes, she sprang open and launched herself into the air with a happy giggle.

"Oof! Hi, Crystal." Anna's voice strained a little, in sympathy with arms that were trying to deal with the weight they had suddenly received.

"You remembered! See, you guys? See? I told you she would!"

Two other youngsters trundled up, and one of them rolled his eyes. "How could she remember, Crystal? She wasn't even here long enough last time for us to meet her properly."

"Ah, well then, you must be Flint," Anna said with a pleased smirk. "And that would make you Orel?" She did her best to suppress a chuckle when the little trolls' mouths fell open in astonishment.

"How did you…?" Orel asked in bewilderment.

"Well, Kristoff's been telling me all about his family, of course. Mind you, it's a very _large_ family, and I don't think I've got all the names straight yet. But it would be hard to mistake the three of you, now wouldn't it?"

"Psst, Anna," Crystal whispered as she tugged on the princess's sleeve. "Who's your other friend?"

"Oh, right! Manners, sorry. Elsa, these are Kristoff's cousins! Crystal, Flint, Orel, this is my sister, Elsa.

"Er, Elsa?"

Anna turned around, surprised to find that her sister was not right by her elbow where she'd expected her to be. It took her only a moment to locate the blond head amid the gray and green of the crowd, but somewhat longer to come to grips with the scene that surrounded it.

Trolls were literally standing right on top of each other, examining Elsa from every height and every angle. Many of them reached out their stubby little arms toward her, but none of them did anything more than gently run their stony fingers over her clothing. It was a considerable contrast to the much more hands-on examination Anna had received upon her first visit to the Valley of the Living Rock.

As she stood and watched, snatches of gravelly conversation drifted across the bowl to her.

"Your Majesty!"

"Queen Elsa!"

"My my, just look at her. She's all grown up now."

"Yes, indeed. Why I remember when..."

"With all the royal visits we've been getting lately, maybe we ought to straighten this place up a little."

"I'm so embarrassed! Why did the queen have to come visit when I'm having such a bad moss day?"

"...reminds me of her mother."

Elsa, for her part, was doing her best to remain gracious, smiling and nodding as one face after another popped up in front of her. All the same, Anna could see the tension in her sister's shoulders even from this distance. After so many years living in effective solitude, Elsa wasn't exactly the most comfortable person when it came to crowds – especially when she found herself the center of the crowd's attention.

"Um, maybe we ought to try those introductions again," Anna said sheepishly. Hoisting Crystal up onto her shoulder, she began to thread her way through the throng toward her sister. When Elsa turned to glance in her direction, the look of relief upon her face was painfully obvious.

The press of round bodies gave way as Anna drew near, and soon she was at her sister's side again, one hand coming to rest lightly upon the other's shoulder. Elsa smiled gratefully at her for a moment before turning back to the female troll who stood before her, hands on her hips with her head cocked slightly to one side, examining both women intently.

"Hello, Bulda," Anna said politely. "I'm sorry we've kept Kristoff away for so long."

"Oh, don't you worry about that. We've grown quite used to him going off for weeks or sometimes even months at a time on ice-harvesting expeditions. So long as he always comes back home safely, that's all that matters. And if he brings my future daughter-in-law with him, well then so much the better!"

"Daughter-in-law?" Elsa asked, startled.

Anna felt her face rapidly progressing through every single shade of pink and red in the spectrum. "No, it's not… We're not! We're just friends, that's all.

"Okay, fine, we're a little more than friends," she admitted when Kristoff's adopted mother fixed her with an incredulous stare. "But we've agreed that we're going to take things slowly. We both think it's for the best. After all, the last time I rushed into a relationship, it didn't exactly turn out all that well."

"Of course, dear," Bulda said with a knowing smile. "You take all the time you need. I really don't mind waiting a little longer to greet my grandchildren."

It takes a special sort of skill to be able to stumble while standing perfectly still. Anna, it turned out, was a master of it. Crystal nearly fell from her perch beside the princess's ear before a steadying hand shot up to catch her. That one small comment, delivered so casually, also gave rise to one of the rare moments that left Anna with nothing to say. Her jaw worked insistently, but nothing came out that was more intelligible than a vague and strangled gurgle.

Elsa had to turn away for a moment, covering her mouth with her hand to hide her amusement at her sister's discomfort.

Both were saved from further chagrin by the sight of a familiar brawny figure coming toward them. At first, it seemed as though the shorter forms at Kristoff's feet were parting deferentially before him. Only as he drew near, however, did it become clear that this courtesy was actually being extended to the venerable troll who ambled along in front of him.

"Your Majesty," Grand Pabbie said with the closest trollish equivalent to a bow that his stiff limbs could manage. "It is an honor to meet you once again."

"The honor is mine, I assure you," Elsa replied, bowing her head respectfully. "You and your people have done so much for my family. I feel as though we owe you a debt whose payment is long overdue. If there is anything I might do to repay your kindness, please know that you have only to ask. Arendelle needs all the allies it can find at the moment, and I would not risk losing your goodwill by taking for granted our friendship or allowing it to become too one-sided."

The old troll smiled. "You have your father's skill at diplomacy, I see. I suspect he would be quite proud of that, and relieved to know that his kingdom is in such good hands."

Elsa blushed, then once again lowered her head to acknowledge the compliment.

"Your offer is much appreciated," Grand Pabbie continued, "but, for the moment at least, unnecessary. Our needs are simple, and we have been more than able to see to them ourselves for many generations now. That we have been left in peace to do as we will in our little corner of the world is all that we ask. We offer our help when it is needed because we believe it is the right thing to do. No repayment is required."

Seeing the disappointed look on the queen's face, Pabbie held up a hand to forestall the argument she was clearly getting ready to make. "However, should that situation ever change, rest assured that I will keep your generous offer firmly in mind. Is that satisfactory?"

Somewhat reluctantly, Elsa nodded. "It just makes this visit a little more awkward. I had truly hoped there might be some service I could do for you, because you see, I'm afraid we've come to ask yet another favor." Her face took on a rather guilty expression.

"Oh, is that all?" Pabbie chuckled. "In that case, you needn't worry. I'm hardly keeping score. Besides," he glanced up over his shoulder at the man behind him, "we're practically family, after all."

Beside him, Bulda nodded energetically. Anna and Kristoff both managed to look more flustered than ever. Restraining her own amusement to a quiet little smirk, Elsa took her sister's hand. Then she stooped down, tugging Anna after her until they were both a bit closer to troll level.

"Years ago," she said without further preamble, "you saved Anna's life when you extracted my magic from her. You even removed all memories of magic, just to be safe. But you see, the damage that was done that night is gone now." She gestured toward her sister's hair, a solid strawberry blond with no lighter streak in sight. "Plus, she knows all about my magic and it doesn't seem to have done her any harm. So we were hoping that maybe it might be safe now for you to put her memories back to the way they used to be."

"Please, Grand Pabbie," Anna added eagerly. "Now that I know the truth, it would mean so much to be able to remember things the way they really were."

The old troll's face fell. "Ah, but what you're asking isn't quite so simple. You see, I didn't just erase those memories. Erasing a memory is much easier, actually. You need only cut off those mental pathways that lead to it. If the mind cannot reach it, then it effectively ceases to exist.

"The problem, however, is that such memories are physically still there and, under the right circumstances, can leak back into your subconscious mind. When your parents brought you to me, I was concerned enough by your condition that I wanted to make sure not even such a tiny residual of magic would be left to harm you. That, as much as anything, was why I chose to do more than simply erase those moments.

"Anna, I am afraid I cannot restore your original memories, because they no longer exist. They were replaced by the new ones that I constructed in order to protect you. I'm ashamed to admit that I did not take the time that night to consider the possibility that the day might come when you would want them back again. Had I foreseen this, then maybe I could have done something differently. Alas, I did not.

"I am sorry, Your Highness. Truly I am. I wish that I could help you, but what you ask is beyond my abilities. Magic may be powerful, but as with all things, it has its limits."

Elsa turned to look at her sister and found that Anna's face was a study in blank incomprehension. She suspected this was more a reflection of her unwillingness to understand than any inability to do so. After all, she had come here with such high hopes. They both had. Neither of them had really allowed themselves to consider the possibility that this wouldn't work. Now to find out that Anna's original memories were gone forever…

"Grand Pabbie," Kristoff said into the silence, "maybe there's some other way. Could you… I don't know. If you can't just put Anna's memories back, could you maybe reconstruct them somehow?"

"You could use mine," Elsa quickly volunteered. "I still remember what really happened. You could use my memories to fill in the pieces that Anna has lost."

The troll frowned. "I do not know. I have never tried such a thing before. It would be incredibly difficult. Simply transferring the memories would not work, or else your sister would be seeing things through your eyes, Your Majesty. She would see herself as you saw her, but she would not see you. To make it work properly, I would have to somehow combine the two, replacing portions of the altered memories with these new creations. It might be possible, but..."

Anna stood abruptly, her fingers slipping from Elsa's. Bringing both hands together in front of her, she bent at the waist in a shallow and hurried half-bow. "Thank you, Grand Pabbie, but I don't think that will be necessary."

"Anna?" Elsa straightened her own knees and looked searchingly into her sister's eyes. Anna gave her a small, if somewhat reserved, smile in return.

"Thank you." She swept her gaze to also include Kristoff, Pabbie, and the rest of the crowd around them. "All of you, but…"

Now it was Elsa's turn to extend a comforting hand. It wasn't like her sister to give up on something she wanted so quickly. Or was it? "Anna, it's okay. You know that, right? It's okay to put yourself first once in a while. You don't have to worry about me or Kristoff or anyone else for a change. Just because it might not be easy doesn't mean we aren't willing to do whatever it takes to help you. You know that I would go to the ends of the earth if it meant making you happy, don't you?"

Anna stared intently at her sister while in her mind, the words of a surprisingly astute snowman came floating back to her. _Love is putting someone else's needs before yours._ How long had she and Elsa been doing exactly that for each other? That was what had driven Elsa into hiding for all those years, after all. She had surrendered her own happiness in an attempt to protect the ones she loved. In return, Anna had been willing to sacrifice her own life to save Elsa's. Really, both of them had spent so much time worrying about everyone but themselves.

"I know," she answered quietly, "and if we really could find some way to restore my memories, that would be one thing. But this… this isn't what I want. I don't need to replace one set of manufactured memories with another. If Pabbie can't put the originals back..." She glanced down at the troll, who shook his head. "Well, I've lived with these for longer than I had the real ones anyway."

"Are you sure?" Elsa asked. "There might still be other things we could try, other avenues we could explore."

"We have bigger things to worry about right now, Elsa. I mean, you have a whole kingdom to run! I'm not saying I'm giving up, but at least now I know that there was a time when there weren't so many secrets in my life. I had to live with too many of those for far too long, so you have no idea how good it feels just knowing that it wasn't always that way. I don't want to ever go back to that again. Just promise me, Elsa. Even if I don't remember it properly, promise me it'll be like when we were little. No more secrets, okay?"

Her eyes bright, Elsa nodded. "You have my word."

"Mine too," Kristoff declared. Then, looking sheepish as all eyes turned upon him, he hastily added, "Not that, you know, I ever kept any secrets from you in the first place, of course."

"Gee, this is going to make surprise parties a lot less surprising."

Anna laughed. "Surprises are fine, Olaf."

"Really? Oh good! Because we have so many pla- Mmrfrbrgle!"

"A-a-and that's another talk we'll need to be having," Kristoff grumbled quietly as he tucked the snowman's head more firmly beneath his arm. "Hey, quit that. You'll get it back later." He slapped one of the two twig arms that were groping in his general direction.

Anna raised her eyebrows, but otherwise decided to let the exchange pass without comment. There would be time enough later to try to wheedle details out of one or both of the boys.

"Are you sure this is what will make you happy?" Elsa asked one last time.

"Nope." Anna shook her head. Then she extended her arms wide to take in everyone around her. "This is what will make me happy. And speaking of which," she added with a playful spark suddenly twinkling in her eyes, "we've come all this way. It seems such a shame to waste the trip, wouldn't you agree? I think it's about time we got to know Kristoff's family properly, don't you Elsa?"

The queen slowly nodded, a mischievous grin blossoming over her face as well. "Oh, absolutely." She turned toward the ice harvester. "I'm sure they have all sorts of interesting stories they could tell us about when Kristoff was younger."

"Do I ever!" Bulda proclaimed proudly. "Has he ever told you about the time he found that pile of coal in the woods?

"You know, I don't think he has."

"Bulda, please don't." Kristoff sighed, his shoulders slumping. He knew full well, of course, that his adopted mother had already passed well beyond any hope of stopping the very instant Elsa had broached the subject.

"Uh nunna hrr tuh!"

"What?" He pulled the snowman's head out from beneath his armpit. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you."

"I said, I wanna hear too!"

"Trust me, you don't."

"Oh, but I do! I really, really do. I love stories."

"You wouldn't like this one." He watched as Bulda, already chatting animatedly, led the two sisters off to a more comfortable corner of the bowl, a crowd of trolls following in their wake.

"But Kristoff, just look at me! No, the rest of me." The twigs that were still attached to his torso waved once, then gestured down the front of his body. "Coal, Kristoff! Just like my buttons! I want to hear the story, and we're missing it. Now help me get my head on straight and let's get going."

Rather unceremoniously, Kristoff plopped Olaf's head atop his would-be shoulders.

"Perfect! Now come on, before we miss the whole thing." The snowman began to clamber down one of the reindeer's front legs.

"It wasn't coal."

"Yes it was. Bulda said you found a pile of coal in the woods."

"I thought it was coal," Kristoff corrected irritably. "It wasn't."

"Well, what was it then?"

"Olaf, do you know what bears do in the woods?"

"Ooh ooh, wait! Don't tell me. I know this one. Umm… Something about honey? No, no, that's not right. Just give me a second, now. Let me think! Think, think, think..."

"Do you know what rock trolls do in the woods?"

"Oh, oh, oh!" Olaf jumped up and down on the spot in excitement. Then he stopped and shook his head. "I have no idea."

"Neither did I." Kristoff gestured resignedly. "Come on, let's go. With any luck, they'll have moved on to some other embarrassing story by now. You coming, Sven?"

" _Wouldn't miss it!"_

"Gee, thanks buddy."

The ice harvester, the reindeer, and the snowman headed off to join the queen, the princess, and a cluster of friendly little moss-covered trolls. It was a strange and altogether unlikely group to say the least, full of strange and altogether unlikely people.

It was, in short, a family.

• • •

Elsa smiled. Recalling her sister's laughter while they had listened to Bulda's stories and watched Kristoff's mortified reactions had the curious and unexpected effect of soothing away some of her own guilt. The disappointment still lingered in her chest, and she was certain that Anna felt it too. However, the difference between Arendelle's daughters had long been in how they handled their setbacks.

Elsa had always worried away at them, dissecting them over and over in search of all the things she had done wrong that had led to them happening in the first place. Anna, on the other hand, rarely looked back in the same way. Instead, she would simply exhaust every possible avenue at her disposal in an attempt to make things right.

Some looked at that approach to life and came to the conclusion that Anna was hopelessly naïve. Honestly, even Elsa had felt that way sometimes. And yet, during all those nights she had spent lying awake reflecting upon every mistake that had plagued her and her family, one conclusion seemed inescapable. Somehow, Anna had managed to weather all that turmoil while still growing into a remarkably well-adjusted woman. Yes, she had her foibles; she was only human after all. But how could Elsa or anyone else say that her attitude toward life was any less valid when it had clearly helped her make it through so much trouble and sorrow.

So fine, they hadn't been able to help Anna get her memories back the way they had both hoped. Still, there were other things she could give her sister instead: love and support, a chance to finally be free, a safe place she could always call home, loyalty that would never turn its back on her again. And maybe, just maybe mind you, those things would, in the end, be worth even more than what they had originally set out to find.

As she quietly closed the bedroom door, she thought about Olaf, who as often as not spent his nights in the subterranean chamber that served as the palace's ice house. She honestly wasn't sure if the snowman actually slept, let alone what he might dream about if he did, but he apparently found the room comfortable enough while he waited for the new day and a chance for another adventure with his friends.

She thought about Kristoff. He'd been given a room in the palace that was close (but not too close) to Anna's, and that was where he kept his few possessions: his lute, his climbing gear, a few changes of clothing. On occasion, he'd even been known to sleep there. Years of habit were difficult to break, however, as Elsa herself knew all too well. That was why on many mornings, he greeted the sunrise from the stall in the stables that had been given over for Sven's use.

She thought of her own new room, now right across the hall from her sister's. They both still visited what had been their parents' bedchambers from time to time, but neither could face the thought of moving into it. Even so, Elsa had chosen to leave her old room behind. She was determined to make a new start of things – with Anna, with Arendelle, and with her life. Too much of the frightened girl she had once been still lingered in her old room. Everything was different now, and she wanted to make that perfectly clear to everyone, including herself. Maybe part of that change would even mean finally leaving her guilt behind.

Despite the lateness of the hour, Elsa did not retire to her own chambers. Instead, she slipped softly through the darkened palace passages until she came to a stop at the intersection of two particular hallways. There, she stood and gazed at the portrait that hung on the wall.

"Hello again, Mother, Father." She paused, ordering her thoughts before she continued speaking in the same quiet tone. "Today turned out to be… well, I suppose you could call it surprising. It certainly didn't end up the way I expected it to when we set out this morning. Grand Pabbie says that he can't give Anna her memories back. She took it better than I would have imagined, though I know she had to be disappointed.

"Of course, this is Anna we're talking about, so I'm certain she'll be fine – and not just because she's always so cheerful and optimistic either. I'm constantly amazed that she can still see the bright side in everything despite what we've been through, but I also think we all know she hides behind that act sometimes. No, she'll be fine because she has all of her friends and this odd little new family we're trying to piece together. We'll help see her through, just like she helped me and we all helped each other.

"After all, if I learned nothing else from the two of you and from Anna, it's that family never gives up on you – not even when you've given up on yourself. I'm trying to live by that every day, along with everything else you taught me.

"I'll admit, though, that most days, I'm frankly still terrified. I don't feel ready to shoulder all of this responsibility. It's more than just Anna; the entire kingdom looks to me now. There's no more regent, no more hiding. The decisions are mine, and so are the mistakes. I look to my advisors, as you taught me to, Father. And I thank heaven for Kai. I'm sure that at least once a day, he saves me from making a complete fool of myself. Gerda claims he did the same for you, though he denies having to do it for either of us."

She fell silent again and, for a long while, just stared at the two beloved faces. "I miss you so much," she said at last, her voice finally breaking a little as it so often did during these conversations. "I wish you were here. You wouldn't even have to be king again, Father. It would just mean so much to hear you say that I'm doing good. Or at least that I haven't messed things up too badly. I just… I'm trying so hard to be the sort of queen, the sort of woman that you would both be proud of, even though I feel like I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing."

She reached out a hand, her fingertips coming close to but never quite touching the pigmented canvas. "I would give just about anything to hear you say those words. To hear you say..."

"I'm proud of you."

Elsa whirled around, startled by the unexpected, albeit familiar voice.

"Or were you hoping for, 'I love you,' instead. Because they're both true, you know. For me and for them."

"Gerda! What are you doing out at this time of night?"

"Much the same as you are, I suspect, Your Majesty," the old woman said, walking forward until she stood next to the queen. "Couldn't sleep. Seems to happen more and more often as the years go by, and it's frankly too warm a night to sit in front of the fire with a hot cup of tea until I finally doze off. So I thought I'd take a little stroll around the place, try to tire myself out a bit. Maybe visit a few old friends." She smiled wistfully at the painting. Elsa looked back at it as well.

"Come here often, do you?" Gerda asked.

The younger woman nodded, feeling a little embarrassed. "Usually in the evenings, when the palace is empty. It's silly, I know, but everyone else expects so much of me. I feel like I can't admit to any of them what I'm really feeling. Well, maybe to Anna, but I'm not sure she'd understand."

"Oh, I think you'll find she understands more than you give her credit for. If nothing else, she knows what it's like to not have anybody to confide in besides a painting."

Elsa smiled faintly. "Where do you think I got the idea from in the first place?"

Gerda chuckled. "Well, if you're going to follow in someone else's footsteps, there are far worse ones you could choose than your sister's. Still, I don't think your parents would have wanted you to try to be anyone else except who you are."

"I wouldn't mind being me if I could just avoid feeling quite so scared quite so often. I wish I could be more like my father in that way."

"You think King Agdar was never scared? Just how many times have you looked at this painting?"

"What do you mean?" Elsa scanned the taller figure pictured within the frame. Her father stood, arm-in-arm with her mother. His posture was ramrod straight, his shoulders pulled back and his gaze fixed firmly ahead of him. "He doesn't look frightened to me."

"That painting was commissioned shortly after your parents were wed," Gerda explained patiently. "Come to think of it, your father was about the same age that you are right now. And it should have been one of the happiest times in his life. He had waited for so long to marry your mother, and at last that dream had come true.

"Of course, he'd barely been king for two months. The end of his father's reign had frankly left the kingdom in a state of turmoil, and so it had fallen on his shoulders to clean up the mess that had been left behind. Right about that time, he also got word from his sister in Corona that her baby girl had mysteriously vanished from their palace without a trace, just as he and your mother were beginning to think about starting a family of their own.

"That isn't confidence you see there. That is the pose of a soldier expecting a dressing down from his superior officer. Not that he ever admitted it to anyone, of course… besides his wife. And she confided in me. Which turns out to have been incredibly fortunate, because now I'm able to tell you.

"You're setting yourself lofty goals, Your Majesty, and that's commendable. Just make sure you aren't setting them so high that no one could ever possibly reach them. If you expect to have all the answers and never be afraid, then you're aiming well beyond any measure set by your parents, I can assure you."

Elsa looked upon her father's likeness as with new eyes. She had marked before how infrequently her father had actually worn his crown, though it sat upon his head in this paining. She had thought that he had simply found it too ostentatious, an unnecessary distraction that only got in the way of the performance of his duties. Now, she found herself considering that it might have been for other reasons entirely.

Perhaps she had even more in common with her father than she'd ever realized.

"Thank you, Gerda. You were always a dear friend to my mother. Sometimes, it's easy to forget that Anna and I aren't the only ones who miss them."

"I imagine it's also easy to forget that the two of you aren't alone, either."

"It used to be," Elsa admitted. "Lately, though, that one's gotten a little easier."

The old woman smiled. "You know that my door is always open if you need someone to talk to. Someone who'll actually talk back, I mean."

"I'd like that. But not tonight, I think. It's late, and I have a kingdom to run tomorrow. I really should be getting to bed." She took one last look at her parents, bidding them a silent farewell, then nodded once to the head of the palace kitchens. "Good night, Gerda."

"Good night, Your Majesty."

"You know, I'm pretty sure you helped to change my diapers when I was a baby. I don't think such formality is really necessary between us, do you?"

A wide smile split Gerda's face. Without saying another word, she turned and headed back up the corridor toward her quarters. Elsa watched her go, slightly perplexed by the reaction of one of her family's oldest friends. Then with a shrug, she began the walk back to her room as well.

• • •

The ivory gull swooped low over the ice as it neared the end of its journey. A long one it had been, too, and to far warmer climes than it was usually accustomed. Still, it had gone in search of something important, and for the first time in its memory or in that of any of any other bird in its colony, something important had finally been found.

It was now very tired, having made only the shortest possible stops for food and rest on its flight north. It didn't fully understand the sense of urgency it felt, but it knew that the news it carried would be met with great excitement, even if it couldn't quite comprehend why. No matter. The job of a messenger was only to deliver the message, not to make sense of it.

The cold air was refreshing, and it helped to bolster the bird's flagging stamina. The land over which it now flew was still somewhat distant from the arctic ice pack that most of its kind called home. Still, there were other amenities here that more than made up for that relative isolation. There was a price to be paid as well in the form of long trips such as this one, and time spent in uncomfortably warm places. Even among birds, though, there are inevitably some with a more adventurous spirit who are willing and even eager to go where others would not. Not all survived such journeys, but those that did often reaped hitherto unknown bounties in such far unexplored reaches.

At that moment, however, a well-known nest and a belly full of familiar food was all that the weary gull desired.

At last, its destination hove into view. Flapping its wings, it gained a bit of altitude, then caught a current of air that was flowing in the proper direction. Gratefully gliding for a span, it adjusted its feathers only slightly to refine its course. Finally, it pulled them in, creating just enough drag to drop it out of the rushing air current. Then with a few short flaps, it sailed in through the open window.

Down one long passage after another it flew, more impatient than ever to complete its mission. Suddenly, the walls and ceiling widened outward into a chamber of such immense size, the bird might almost have believed that it had flown out another window and was once again back outside. It had been here before, though, and so knew better. It made straight for the center for the cavernous room. With one last effort, it dropped down to roost atop the vertical slab of ice it found there.

On the far side of the ice, a figure stirred. A graceful hand rose up, up, until one long finger touched the top of the gull's head and began to stroke it gently.

"You have been gone a long time, my friend," said the voice that belonged to that figure. "I was afraid that something might have happened to you. Your safe return is most welcome. Of course, you must be terribly tired. You should go to the aviary and rest. Another will be sent to take your place."

A moment passed while the bird luxuriated in the simple caress of that one finger upon its head and neck. Then, in a resigned tone that was all but a sigh, the voice asked, "I suppose there is no news again this time, as there has never been?"

The snow white gull did not want the stroking to end, yet it knew its duty well. It jerked its head, then gently poked once with its beak at the side of the pale hand.

The finger stopped moving immediately, though it remained in place atop the bird's head for a second longer. Then the hand turned over, its open palm cupped right in front of the winged messenger. With a brief flutter, the gull rose from the back of the chair. Then its long claws, used for gripping the pack ice in its native habitat, released the small burden it had carried so very far.

A silence colder and heavier than the depths of winter held sway over the room. Slowly, the figure rose to its feet, holding the object up toward the ceiling to get a better look at it in the light of the aurora that cascaded overhead. Then a single laugh, a giggle of almost girlish glee, broke the stillness.

The wandering green illumination shown through the thin crystalline sheath that was held between two slender fingers, making the translucent encasement seem to almost glow. This was not the cause of the jubilation, however. No, that was born out of what could be seen trapped within the protective covering.

A single golden crocus, frozen in full bloom, had somehow been impossibly captured within solid ice.

"Ah," the woman said almost rapturously. "Time brings all things to those who cultivate patience. Now at last, I have a sign. I will admit, it took longer than I had anticipated, though perhaps not so very long in the grand scheme of things.

"Still, these things must be done properly. Others have been watching as well, though none as swift of wing as you, my fine feathered friend. We shall see what reports they bring, if any. That will take more time still. But then, I have waited this long. I can wait a while longer. Besides, there are preparations that must be made. I have not traveled so far from home in quite some time, yet I think a journey south is definitely called for once again."

The ivory gull found itself being lifted from its perch and carried, cradled in two gentle hands, to the comfortable familiarity of the aviary. There, it was placed carefully into its nest, where weariness quickly defeated hunger as its primary concern. Before long, it was fast asleep.

Elsewhere in the sprawling ice palace, however, a great deal of activity had commenced. Much had to be planned. Much had to be readied. Much had to be done.

For soon, the Snow Queen would set forth on her long pilgrimage to Arendelle.


	2. Depths of Snow and Feeling

_Knock knock-knock-knock knock_.

"Come in, Anna."

Elsa laid down the document she'd been reviewing, then straightened. Pinching the bridge of her nose with one hand, she attempted to massage the protesting muscles in her lower back with the other. A quick glance at the clock made the cause of her discomfort abundantly clear. Even the most comfortable chair in the world wasn't much help when the person sitting in it spent that many hours hunched forward in ponderous concentration.

All those years that her father, King Agdar, had spent preparing her to take over the throne had somehow utterly failed to convey exactly how much of her time would be spent sitting behind a desk going over paperwork. Trade agreements, treaties, storehouse inventories, petitions from her people, reports on export quotas, reports on import tariffs, reports on reports. She already felt so small behind the huge mahogany desk that had been part of her inheritance. Add to that the never-ending mountains of paper and she felt like she was beginning to disappear.

Fortunately, whenever that feeling threatened to become too unbearable, there was always Anna. She entered the study now, nose buried in a sheaf of her own papers, idly twisting the end of one braid around her finger as she walked. Privately, Elsa considered this a dangerous combination. Her sister's coordination was as unpredictable as Arendelle's weather in winter, particularly whenever she got distracted. As such, the addition of reading to the simple act of locomotion seemed to be tempting fate.

Even as Elsa watched, Anna very nearly proved her correct. Without bothering to look up from her papers, she began to sit down in a chair that wasn't quite where she seemed to remember it being. Quickly but surreptitiously, Elsa gave a small flick of her fingers. A horizontal pillar of ice suddenly sprouted from the wall behind her sister, making contact with the back of the chair and pushing it forward so that it slid neatly under Anna just as she dropped off her feet.

Smiling and shaking her head, Elsa rose and came out from behind the desk. With another gesture from her, the ice sublimated into nothingness. She still couldn't quite get used to how easy that had become these days. Then again, she was also still getting used to being queen, and to being a big sister to Anna again after far too many years apart. She supposed it all went to show that change didn't always have to be a bad thing.

Selecting a more convenient seat across from her sister, she folded herself gracefully into it. Then she waited for Anna to look up.

Elsa had been forced to admit some measure of surprise when, after she had finally thawed Arendelle and reclaimed a throne from which she had temporarily fled, Anna had vehemently insisted on assisting with the running of the kingdom in any and every way she could. Not that she doubted Anna's desire to help. It was only that Anna had never really seemed to show much interest in mundane concerns like governing a kingdom when they had been growing up.

What she hadn't counted on was Anna's absolute unwillingness to break a promise, especially one made to her sister, even if she had only been five years old at the time she'd made it.

Back then, before the accident that had sent Elsa into seclusion for thirteen years, the two sisters had been the closest of friends. They had played together, talked together, and dreamed together. And those dreams had included some big ideas for what had then seemed like nothing more than a vague, far off someday when Elsa would ascend to the throne. Anna had vowed then that she would be her sister's right hand, her most trusted advisor and staunchest defender.

Elsa never would have dreamed, during those long years closeted in her room, that Anna would remember that silly childhood promise. Nor could she have imagined the harrowing paths they both would find themselves traveling in order to get here, or the tragedies that had thrust this fate upon them at such young ages. Nevertheless, here they were nearly fourteen years later, exactly where they had both said they would be.

Anna's formal title, and the way she was introduced in all official contexts, was "Princess and Chief Counselor." Elsa had personally insisted on the second part (though Anna had protested that it was far too grandiose). After spending so very long pushing her sister away, Elsa wanted to make it absolutely clear to the world exactly how much trust she placed in Anna... and woe be unto anyone who tried to come between them ever again.

Even so, the court, the palace staff, and indeed most of the kingdom at large had taken to using a different title that Elsa had to admit she rather preferred herself, even if it wasn't quite as suitable for formal occasions. They referred to the younger of the two royal sisters as The Conscience of Arendelle. Anna might not always possess the firmest grasp of the fine points of trade policy or be the most skilled at the intricate dance of the negotiation table, but she most definitely knew right, wrong, and fair. Even more importantly, she had been born with a double helping of compassion.

For instance, when a terrible storm had devastated a fishing village further up the coast a month or two earlier, it had been Anna who had led the relief efforts. She had supervised the gathering of food, clothing, and supplies from the royal storehouses and from the generous donations of Arendelle's people. Once everything had been loaded aboard several sturdy naval vessels, she had insisted on accompanying them herself so she could oversee their distribution and lead the efforts to repair or rebuild the damaged homes.

All the same, Elsa had been glad that Kristoff had accompanied her sister on that trip. As sincere as Anna was in her desire to help everyone, there was simply no denying the tendency of things to get shattered, squashed, smashed or otherwise broken in her presence. So, while she had kept an eye on the restoration of the village, Kristoff had kept his eyes on her.

She had to admit, the two did make a surprisingly good team. More importantly, the ice harvester truly seemed to make Anna happy. After all the pain and heartache Elsa had watched her sister endure over the years, it was now her own greatest source of joy to see her smile and hear her laugh every single day.

Elsa had even attempted to convince Anna that she really shouldn't feel obligated to keep her promise to help govern the kingdom. She felt reasonably confident that she could deal with the stress and drudgery of it all on her own. After all, she had grown quite used to isolation over the years. Spending hours holed up alone in the study slogging through the myriad details that it took to rule Arendelle was almost second nature to her by now, even if there were days when it left her feeling completely drained.

She didn't want that for her sister, who had spent those same years longing to be free from her confinement within the castle walls. Now that the gates were open, Anna could come and go whenever she wanted, so it made Elsa feel guilty that she chose to spend so much time inside the palace trying to help her.

She felt guiltier still, albeit intensely grateful too, when she realized how much she had come to rely on her sister's assistance. Everyone now knew the secret the royal family had tried to keep hidden for so very long, and her control over her powers was better than it had ever been. It seemed like there shouldn't be any real reason for the queen to hide herself away these days. No reason, that is, except for the fact that it takes more than a few months to break free from over a decade's worth of deeply engrained habit and fear.

When protocol demanded it, she could usually address the people, attend various royal functions, meet with her advisors and foreign dignitaries. She just never felt terribly comfortable in any of those situations. Left to her own devices, she always preferred to seek out quiet solitude or the company of only a few close friends. That was where she would go to find her calm center when the pressures of the crown weighed too heavily upon her, which they did more frequently than she cared to admit even to herself.

Anna recognized this, of course, and would always happily cover for her sister whenever social anxieties threatened to get the better of her. But she also refused to let Elsa fall all too easily back into her old patterns of behavior. If ever that seemed to be happening, a royal ball or a play or some other form of public entertainment would inevitably appear on her calendar, which she would then find herself being dragged to – sometimes, almost literally.

Anna would be there with her, though, and so would Kristoff... and often even Olaf. (It had taken some people a bit of time to get used to the idea, but sooner than she had imagined, the talking snowman had become an accepted fixture around the castle.) Being surrounded by family and friends helped, as did the fact that she was allowed to simply be a spectator. Though she was still the queen, in those venues, she was really just another member of the audience and not the center of attention.

So it was that slowly – far too slowly for her sister's taste, she was sure – Elsa was learning not just how to be queen, but also how to be something like a normal person again. Well, at least as normal as a person can be who just happens to have the ability to create and manipulate ice and snow. But Anna seemed more than willing to include that particular quirk within her generous definition of normal. For now, that was good enough for them both.

Pulling herself out of her reverie, Elsa focused again on her sister, only to realize that Anna still had not looked up from whatever it was she was reading. And even though there was no question that, between the two of them, Elsa herself had been born with far greater reserves of patience, she nevertheless felt that she had waited quite long enough to be getting on with. She didn't mind the interruption in her work – in fact, after spending so many hours poring over the endless pile of papers, she actually welcomed it – but if she was going to indulge in a little break, then she would be hard pressed to think of many ways to spend it that would be less interesting than watching someone else working instead.

So she finally decided to exercise her queenly prerogative to expedite matters a little.

"Anna? Anna!"

The redhead started and lifted her head, slightly abashed. "Oh, sorry! Guess I got a little distracted. Okay, maybe a lot distracted. There's just so much to do these days. Who knew, right? The only way I can keep up with it all is to do two things at once!" She grimaced. "Which is not exactly my strong suit, I'll admit."

Elsa smiled, then craned her neck to try to view the papers Anna was holding. "So remind me what we're working on today?"

"Oh, it's the Southern Isles' latest attempt to try and make amends for... well, you know." The name of the youngest prince of that particular kingdom hadn't exactly been banned from the Arendelle Royal Court. However, its use so consistently brought a sour look of distaste to speakers' faces (and a sudden chill if Elsa happened to be nearby) that it had more or less just fallen out of fashion. "They're offering to send one of the other princes to deliver a personal apology on behalf of the royal family."

"Which one?"

"Who can keep track?" Anna said, as she flipped through the pages searching for a name. "Alexander, maybe? Or was it William? No," she corrected herself, stabbing at one page with her finger. "No, it was Linus."

Elsa scoffed. "That sounds about right. Of the remaining twelve princes, he seems to be the least popular of the lot."

"Isn't he the one who talks to his... you know?"

"Pet rat, yes. He's definitely an odd one."

"Well, considering the way Kristoff talks to Sven, I try not to judge."

"There is that. But honestly, the more I learn about that family, the closer I come to almost feeling sorry for..." Elsa stopped when she saw the look on Anna's face. "Look, I didn't say I'd forgive him. But growing up in that household would be enough to twist anybody a little off kilter."

"We didn't exactly have normal childhoods either, Elsa, but we didn't turn into monsters like that."

The queen winced. "Yes, well, if you ignore that whole business of plunging the entire kingdom into an eternal winter and then very nearly..." Her words broke off as memories unbidden arose to haunt her. Anna, standing upon the frozen surface of the fjord. Hand raised defensively. Eyes staring at nothing. Her entire body turned to solid ice. The warmest person Elsa had ever known, freezing cold to the touch. And all because she had… She had…

She still had nightmares.

Some part of her inner torment must have found its way onto her face, for the next thing she knew, Anna was kneeling before her, enfolding both of her hands within her own. "It's okay, Elsa. I'm right here. I'm fine. Arendelle's fine. The people love you, and I love you. You don't need to be afraid ever again."

Elsa looked down at their paired hands and found herself marveling at how such a small thing could feel so huge. If she were to be perfectly honest with herself, there were times when she still felt almost naked without her gloves. They had been a part of her for so long, after all. To now feel the warmth of her sister's skin against her own perpetually cool fingers still continued to shock her a little whenever it happened. Then again, it also served as one of the most tangible and undeniable reminders that, as she'd had occasion to observe once before, the past really was in the past. Things were different in the here and now… and far, far better.

She allowed herself a smile. "I know. It just isn't easy changing a lifetime of wrong thinking overnight."

Anna nodded once, smartly. "Then it's a good thing you have such a patient sister!" This at least earned her a small chuckle.

"Just remember what I keep telling you, okay?" she continued. "You aren't alone anymore. No matter what happens, I'll be right here beside you, just like when we were little. You know… Up or down together?"

Elsa's smile broadened into a full-fledged grin. "Princess crown together."

"Always be together."

"You and me."

Both sisters broke into ringing laughter as they finished the final line of their childhood clapping game in perfect unison. The dark cloud that had seemed to be gathering over them vanished in an instant.

As Anna return to her seat, Elsa dabbed merry tears out of the corners of her eyes. "So, what response have you prepared to the Southern Isles' proposal?"

"Oh, I've invited them to a retreat up on the North Mountain. I figured the seclusion offered by the Ice Palace should allow us to conduct talks without any annoying interruptions. Plus, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to introduce them to Marshmallow. Something tells me he could be a very persuasive negotiator…"

"Anna!" Elsa exclaimed, looking slightly scandalized. "You didn't!"

"Of course I didn't," Anna laughed again. "Come on, give me a little bit of credit! I may not be as good at this whole 'ruling the kingdom' business as you are, but I'm not _that_ hopeless."

The queen looked askance at her sister. "You're still punishing me for that dance with the Duke of Weselton, aren't you?"

"Weaseltown," Anna corrected automatically. "And don't be silly. I'm saving up that particular payback for a special occasion."

"Mm." Elsa eyed her sister warily. She had no doubt that Anna would make good on that promise, but that was fine. It only meant that she herself would feel that much less guilt the next time she offered up another little surprise of her own. All the same, the reminder of the kingdom's one-time closest trading partner made her sigh.

"Between cutting off trade with Wes-, er, Weaseltown and the strained relations with the Southern Isles, we really need to find some new markets for our exported goods. We still have Corona, which is fortunate, but I don't like having to rely on them too heavily. I want to prove that Arendelle can stand on its own, and I don't want anyone thinking that we're only getting by because of charity from our extended family."

Anna waved her hand dismissively at such a notion. "Oh, you worry too much. Isn't the point of royal marriages to strengthen alliances between kingdoms? Nobody's going to think twice about something like that, just because Aunt Primrose happens to be Corona's queen. After all, it was never a problem for Father when he was… when he…

"Well... you know," the princess finished rather lamely.

A quiet settled upon the room. It wasn't really an uncomfortable silence, nor was it truthfully all that sad. Mostly, it was respectful and a little sentimental. Time had dulled that particular pain for both of them, though it could still flare up suddenly and with little warning. The palace was filled with memories, after all, particularly here in their father's study and in the library where their mother had loved to spend so much of her free time.

"Father was such a brave man and an incredibly wise leader," Elsa eventually said. "Everyone respected him. I know that he didn't always have all the answers, but he could make people believe that he did. I still haven't figured out how to do that. I thought I had understood all the lessons he'd given me, but now I'm discovering all the questions that, back then, I didn't even realize I should have asked.

"Sometimes, when I'm sitting at his desk, I feel like I'm just a little girl again pretending to be all grown up. I find myself half expecting that he'll walk in the door and begin telling me what subject I'm going to learn about today. I really wish he would. There's still so much I don't know about ruling a kingdom."

"I miss the quiet moments," Anna confessed. "Granted, this is me we're talking about, so there were never all that many of them. But maybe that's why they seem so special now. I miss the feel of Mama brushing my hair, or of just sharing a seat with her in the library or the sitting room. Tea and krumkake in the parlor with her and Gerda. Standing up on the ramparts watching the boats together. All those silly little things that just seemed so ordinary at the time.

"I guess it's only when you look back that you realize that those are exactly the sort of things you only do with the people who really matter."

Elsa gazed at her sister as the truth in her words struck home with surprising poignancy. Of course, it was only surprising because Anna always made such a habit of presenting a bright and cheerful face to the world. Sometimes, it was easy to forget that she was just as capable of deep thoughts and powerful emotions as anyone else, and should she choose to let you see them… Well, Anna only ever opened herself up in that fashion to people she knew and trusted implicitly.

If there was any higher honor or compliment than being in possession of Anna's complete trust, Elsa did not know it. It was also a great responsibility, and one she did not take lightly. It had to be repaid in kind.

"Well," she said as she indulged in a luxuriant stretch, "I for one have spent far too much time cooped up inside today. I think I need to get out for a while. Care to join me?"

"Elsa," her sister replied with a quirk of her lips that might have indicated amusement, exasperation, or a comfortable confluence of both, "maybe you hadn't noticed, but winter arrived a little early this year. It's below freezing outside! There's at least a foot of snow on the ground, and it's still coming down. Everybody with any sense is crowding around the nearest fireplace trying to stay warm."

"Well, in that case," Elsa said, arching an eyebrow as she watched Anna's face split into a broad grin, "do you want to build a...?"

"Let me grab my cloak."

• • •

At first, Elsa was determined that she would not use her powers.

Her childhood hadn't exactly been filled with the fondest of memories, but some of the best that she had were of playing with Anna in the snow. Way back then, before their lives had become so twisted and complicated, they had both been young enough that magic had still seemed perfectly natural. After all, it had been a part of so many of their favorite stories, and they'd both known it firsthand their entire lives.

Even so, whether playing outside during the winter months or enjoying their own little indoor blizzards, they'd always built their snowmen the old fashioned way. It had been so much better to work together. That way, the result had never been just Elsa's creation. Even when it had been made from her snow, it had belonged to the both of them.

Her sister might not remember those days in quite the same way, but as Pabbie had promised, she still remembered the fun. That much was readily apparent on her face the minute they had exited into the courtyard. With a smile that had barely budged since Elsa had first made her suggestion, Anna immediately bent down and began rolling up the first snowball. Elsa stooped and set to work on one of her own.

It was hard to say how many minutes passed in this happy fashion before they both started, looked across the snow-covered grounds at each other, and then turned back to the doors of the palace, seeking the source of the sound that had unexpectedly interrupted their sisterly bonding.

A passel of young boys and girls, children of the newly enlarged palace staff, stood just outside the doors. Some of them were still laughing at the doubtlessly amusing sight of the queen and the princess diligently trudging their way through the shin-deep snow, obviously engaged in an activity that the children all recognized as properly belonging to their own youthful purview. After all, everyone knew that adults didn't play in the snow. At least, that was what they had been led to believe.

The youngest and smallest of the girls received a firm nudge in the back from the boy standing behind her. Actually, it skated the edge between a nudge and a full-fledged push – a fact which she clearly did not appreciate, judging by the dirty look she shot in his direction. Regardless of whether she had volunteered or been selected, it was clear that she was to serve as the ambassador for the little group.

So it was that she darted forward, crossing the distance to where the sisters stood in a few short seconds, before finally coming to a stop just about as close to Elsa as respect for royalty would allow. The girl opened her mouth to speak, and only then seemed to remember that she was about to address the Queen of Arendelle. Her eyes grew wide at her own presumption, and she bowed her head and executed the cutest little curtsy Elsa had ever seen. Suddenly at a loss for words, her hands began toying nervously with the hem of her jacket.

Elsa crouched down in front of the little diplomat, leaning forward until she managed to catch the child's eye. "Lisbet, isn't it?" The girl looked up, eyes popping even wider than before at the realization that the queen actually knew her name. "Was there something you wanted to tell me?"

Lisbet's gaze darted to Anna for a moment. The princess smiled back as she walked up to stand next to her sister. "It's alright," she said encouragingly. "Go on."

The girl looked at Elsa again, then tossed a glance over her shoulder at the other children. The boy who had prodded her earlier (her older brother?) motioned frantically with his hands, encouraging her to continue. So she turned back once more, drew in a deep breath, then leaned forward herself and conspiratorially whispered...

"Do the magic?"

Anna had to cover her mouth with her mittened hand to keep from laughing at the look of astonishment that blossomed across her sister's face. After all those years spent hiding, Elsa still found it hard to believe the way her people had embraced both her and her powers so completely. Now she looked up at Anna, a question clearly visible on her face.

"I don't see why not," the princess replied with a broad smile and a small bow in Lisbet's direction. "The more the merrier, right?"

The girl's face lit up, and she spun around to gesture energetically at her friends. "Come on, come on, come on!" she called. The children all broke into a run, and soon Elsa and Anna found themselves surrounded by excited young faces.

Turning in a slow circle, Elsa made sure to look at each child in turn. Then, spinning her hands around one another in the air before her, she quickly formed a ball of sparkling blue-white energy. Glancing about to once again include everyone in the assembled group, she asked a question whose answer was entirely too obvious.

"Are you ready?"

"Yeah!" came the chorus of enthusiastic replies.

Elsa smiled, her eyes sparkling almost as brightly as her magic. With a flourish, she tossed the glistening orb towards the two large spheres that she and Anna had nearly completed. They both rose a short distance into the air and began to spin around each other in stately fashion. Soon, a few smaller lumps of snow had also lifted off the ground, joining in the intricate dance.

All eyes watched the display with rapt attention, including Anna's, whose goofy grin was at least as wide as any that could be found on the children's faces. There would probably have been multiple appropriately impressed oohs and ahhs to accompany the show, but for the fact that so many mouths were simply hanging open in amazement.

Then, with a sudden sweep of Elsa's hands, all the variously sized snowballs flew together in a mad rush. Just for a little added dramatic flair, she caused a spray of loose snow to fountain up, obscuring exactly what was happening within. Boys and girls alike stretched their necks as far as they would go, leaning this way and that as they tried valiantly to see what wonderful marvel was waiting to be unveiled. Elsa held the tension as long as she dared, keeping the curtain of swirling snow spinning and circling until several of the youngsters were practically dancing on the spot in their excitement. At last, a flick of her wrist was all it took to clear the air.

There was no snowman to be seen. Instead, right there in the middle of the castle courtyard, stood a life-sized snowbear! Life-sized, but not exactly life-like. Four stocky legs held it off the ground. The nose at the end of its muzzle was a black pebble that had been pulled out from deep beneath the drifts. Two little white ears and two bright, keen eyes completed the face. The overall effect was something like a child's drawing of a bear – a caricature that wasn't nearly as fearsome as its real-life counterpart would have been. In fact, it was downright cute!

It stood stock still for a moment, a statue that had been neither carved nor molded. Then the ears twitched. Its front paws pushed forward while its hindquarters rose, forming the ursine equivalent of Elsa's earlier stretch. Straightening, it rolled its head rapidly back and forth as though shooing away a pesky fly or flinging off water from a recent swim.

The children simply stared for a moment in wide-eyed wonder, more mouths dangling open now than even a moment earlier, as the bear lifted its head and sniffed at the air. Slowly, it turned and looked straight at them. It blinked once or twice. Then it again extended one forepaw, this time tucking the other back beneath its belly, and lowered its head in what was unmistakably a bow.

The circle erupted in cheers as every single boy and girl rushed forward to get a closer look at the queen's incredible creation. All save Lisbet, that is, who remained standing between Anna and Elsa.

This time, it was Anna's turn to crouch down beside the little girl. "What is it, dear?" she asked softly. "Is something the matter?"

Lisbet looked at her for a moment, then tilted her head back and looked up at Elsa. "Can I learn to do that too?"

Both sisters laughed. Elsa bent down and lifted the girl off her feet. Then she walked over to the crowd of excited youngsters and carefully perched Lisbet atop the bear, just behind his front shoulders. Anna would not have believed that the look of pure happiness on the girl's face could have been any brighter until Elsa gave the bear a gentle pat on the rump. Immediately, it began to lope around the courtyard, Lisbet on its back squealing with delight as all the other children chased after them both, screaming and laughing and whooping in their excitement.

Anna sidled closer to her sister. They watched together as the bear came to a halt near the far castle wall. There, it lowered itself to allow Lisbet to dismount and another one of the youngsters to climb on board. Then the merry pursuit began anew.

She slipped her hand into Elsa's and squeezed tightly. "You really are amazing, you know that?"

Elsa felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment at such gratuitous flattery. She could not think of anything that might qualify as an appropriate response. Still, she turned to face her little sister, opening her mouth and simply hoping that the words would come before she ended up looking like a gawping fool. She stopped, however, when she saw Anna staring intently at a spot several meters away.

"What is that?" Anna asked.

"What is what?" Elsa tried to follow her sister's gaze, yet she could see nothing but a courtyard completely covered in snow, some of it now packed down by the passage of many small feet.

"That! Right there! Don't you see it? Is that something you made?"

Elsa freed her hand from Anna's and took a few steps forward, still searching for anything out of the ordinary. "I don't think so. But then, I still can't see anything. What am I looking for?"

"You know! It's that... that white thing, right there in front of you."

Elsa rolled her eyes. "It's called snow, Anna, and there's lots of it all over. I don't know what you think it is you're seeing, but I'm pretty sure it must be your imagination playing tricks on you. There's nothing here." Shrugging, she abandoned her inspection and started to turn back around.

The snowball caught her right on the side of the head.

"Oops, sorry!" Anna just stood there, both hands in front of her mouth, staring at the sloppy white mess that was dripping down her sister's face. Yet despite the proffered apology, Elsa had trouble believing that Anna was feeling too terribly sorry. Her shoulders were shaking with poorly suppressed laughter.

"You know," the queen observed with a puckish little smirk, "I have the feeling that you didn't really think through this little plan of yours all that clearly." She slowly lifted both hands away from her sides. In response, a dozen snowballs rose from the ground all around her sister.

"Hey! Hey, no fair!" Anna stammered, beginning to back quickly away. "I mean, I only threw the one!"

Elsa shrugged again, her eyes twinkling mischievously. "What was it you said a little while ago? The more the merrier?"

"Elsa-a-a-a!" Anna shrieked as she finally turned and ran for it, all twelve snowballs in close pursuit.

 _I'll let her regroup and rearm in a little bit_ , thought Elsa. _Probably. Eventually._

She still regretted the fact that they had been stymied in their attempts to restore Anna's memories. She'd already spent too many years burdened with the guilt over how her powers had led to the prolonged misshaping of her sister's young life.

Now it was true that Elsa loved to learn, and was generally a quick study in most things. Even so, everyone has at least a few subjects in which they struggle, and this had unwittingly been one of hers. It had taken her an embarrassingly long time before she'd finally begun to understand that guilt was neither a bad thing nor a good one. In the end, it was simply a warning, not unlike the pain of a burned finger that teaches a child the dangers of playing with fire. Guilt was the conscience saying, "You might want to think twice before you do something like that again."

As with any other warning, every person had to choose how they would respond. She could let the dread of what might happen paralyze her, keeping her from doing anything for fear of doing the wrong thing. Or she could choose to continue living her life, moving forward with a bit more wisdom and a touch more caution.

Elsa had tried the first approach for far too long. Now, times had changed and so had she. This was her chance to try something different. She would still heed her guilt, letting it inform her actions in the hope that it might help make her a better person. But when mistakes inevitably happened, maybe she could attempt to make amends. Instead of seeking out penance, perhaps she might find forgiveness.

Maybe Anna would never remember her youngest years in quite the way they had actually happened. Those memories might be lost to her forever, but dwelling on that fact wouldn't change it. Elsa couldn't undo all that had already been done, but she could control what she did today and every day going forward.

And she would start by helping to create new memories – happy and wonderful memories – that she and Anna could share now and forever.

"Coming through!"

Elsa, yanked out of her reverie by the shout that came up behind her, spun around on the spot. Her eyes grew wide at the sight of her sister, sitting tall astride the snowbear with Lisbet perched in front of her, as all three of them bore down upon her at full speed.

Elsa dropped to her knees just in time for the bear to leap up into the air, flying over her like a horse vaulting a hedge. Jubilant laughter rolled out from the two riders as the queen quickly pushed herself back onto her feet.

"Anna!" she cried out at her sister's retreating back.

 _Paf! Paf paf paf! Plut put paf! Splut paf put put. Splat!_

One by one, all twelve magically-propelled snowballs smacked into the queen from behind.

"What was that, Elsa?" Anna called back as she brought the bear to a halt. "I couldn't hear you over the snow!"

Elsa was still attempting to come up with a suitable rejoinder, one which most likely would have included dumping a veritable mountain of wet slush atop her sister's head, when the matter was quite capably taken out of her hands.

"Hey!" Anna shouted, raising her arms to protect her face as snowballs flung by the palace children rained down upon her. "Is that any way to treat your princess?"

"We'll stop if Queen Elsa tells us to," called out one of the older boys as he bent down to scoop up another handful of snow.

"Elsa!"

In response, a pile of perfectly formed wintry projectiles suddenly materialized on the ground in front of each and every child.

The free-for-all that followed lasted most of the afternoon. Finally, wet and weary but laughing as hard as any of the youngsters who accompanied them, Queen Elsa and Princess Anna led the entire troupe back inside the palace and down to the kitchens. In a thrice, Gerda was pouring out mugs of spicy mulled cider and sweet hot chocolate, enough for everyone to enjoy.

It was a day that most of them would not soon forget.

• • •

"I don't like this, Sven."

Kristoff straightened, slapping the powder off his gloves, and frowned at the small nub of sturdy branch that was still just barely visible before him. "I've never seen snow so deep this early in the year. Well, not natural snow, at any rate."

Lifting his head, he scanned the near distance, surveying the mountains that surrounded him. "The amount we've gotten already is unreal. It shouldn't be this thick until maybe sometime in January. If it keeps up at this rate, a lot of the passes will be… well, impassable before the end of the year."

" _You don't think Elsa could be causing this, do you?"_

"I hope not. Ever since the Great Thaw, she seems to have kept her powers mostly under control. I mean sure, she's had a few little hiccups here and there. Heh, literally. You remember that one morning when the entire staff had to watch every step they took because there were little patches of ice scattered all over the palace? Every time she hiccupped, she'd leave a miniature skating rink behind her. But they've only been little things like that. She hasn't let loose with anything even close to this since Coronation Day."

" _Well, we've had early winters before."_

"True, and I hope that's all this is." With a bit of effort, Kristoff managed to climb to his feet again, despite the awkwardness of the snowshoes strapped to the underside of his boots. "If Anna thinks this has anything to do with her sister, there's no way she'll be able to stop worrying until she figures out how to fix it. Don't get me wrong, it's really sweet and I love that she does things like that. But let's face it, whenever she thinks somebody else needs saving, she does have a nasty habit of jumping in where even snowmen fear to tread."

Arendelle's official Ice Master (and Deliverer) leaned to one side to peer back downslope, while Sven shuffled in place a little, craning his neck around to follow his friend's gaze.

"And believe me," Kristoff finished dryly, "that's saying something."

"Hey guys, check it out! I think I can see our castle from here!"

Olaf, being made from snow (and magical snow at that), seemed to have no problem walking across even the most yielding of powder while leaving only the shallowest of footprints behind him, a fact that had apparently served him well in this instance. Somehow, he had managed to climb to the top of a massive snowdrift and was now standing rather precariously upon its apex, looking back the way they had come, head in his hands. Of course, that phrase meant something entirely different when applied to the diminutive snowman.

"At least I think it's the castle," Olaf said as he squinted, stretching his twigs as high as they could go in an attempt to improve his vantage point. "Either that or it's just a really tall pine tree. Man, how come there's never an icicle around when you need one?"

"What do you think you're doing?" Kristoff asked as he trudged back down the path to better assess the situation.

"I'm trying," Olaf grunted. "To see." He grunted again. "The castle."

"You're throwing your head in the air."

"And now. I'm trying. Not to be sick."

"You can't be sick. You don't eat."

"Hold on," the snowman said, looking Kristoff up and down while completely ignoring his comment. "You're tall."

"Gee, so glad you noticed."

"Do you think maybe you could give me a hand?"

"Wait, you mean you want me to…?"

Olaf nodded, which in this case meant that his upraised hands allowed his head to tilt forward. Unfortunately, it turned out that they hadn't had the best grip to begin with. The result was that he suddenly found his world backwards and upside-down.

"Hey, where did you go?"

Kristoff stood for a moment, considering which of a dozen or so droll comments would be most appropriate for this peculiar situation. A fair number of them questioned why he always agreed to let Elsa's curious little creation tag along whenever he and Sven ascended into the high mountains, despite knowing full well Olaf's knack for poking his carrot into places it really didn't belong. Then he realized that there wasn't a single one of his comebacks that wouldn't be completely lost on the all-too-literal snowman.

"Fine," he sighed. Reaching over, he grabbed the bottom of the snowman's head – even if it did happen to be uppermost at the moment – then thrust his arm straight up into the air as high as it could reach.

"Oh, hey! Wow, would you look at that? I was right after all."

"Great. So are you happy now that you got to see the castle?"

"Nope. It's a tree. A big one too, tall and pointy and covered with snow. It's so pretty. You really ought to come up here and have a look!"

Sven let out a series of staccato snorts that sounded for all the world like laughter.

"Right, I think that's enough sightseeing. Now how about we get you down from there, okay?" As he lowered Olaf's head, he grabbed the rest of him with his free hand and joined the various parts together down by his booted feet. "I don't want to have to go back home and explain to Anna that I lost you because you lost your balance and ended up rolling all the way down the mountainside."

"That sounds like fun!"

"Olaf!"

"Okay, okay! Jeez, you would think somebody raised by rocks would have better appreciation for a nice roll."

"They're not rocks, they're trolls, and… Look, just stay where I can keep an eye on you, alright?" Giving the snowman one last wary look, he turned and made his way back up the path until he was again standing beside the reindeer. Placing one hand on his friend's back, he looked up appraisingly at the tall height that still towered above them.

"I don't know. What do you think, Sven?"

" _Looks pretty risky to me."_

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Though an experienced mountaineer, Kristoff found himself none too happy at the thought of attempting any further ascent. The path still continued on a good way yet, but he knew there were some tricky sections up ahead where he wasn't entirely sure he trusted his luck to keep the runners from getting thoroughly bogged down.

Of course, he could leave the sled here, break out his climbing gear, and take a more direct approach to see what things were like further up the mountain. Even then, though, the quantity of fresh, loose snow worried him. The last thing he needed was to accidentally dislodge a chunk of it while trying to explore the upper reaches of the pass. If it set off a cascade, the results could be problematic to say the least. Besides, he felt fairly confident that he would not learn anything more than what he already knew: a great deal of snow had fallen unusually early in the year and in a remarkably short period of time.

Finally, after carefully weighing his options, he made his decision.

"Right. Come on, Sven," he said as he rechecked the fit on the reindeer's harness for good measure. "Olaf, you too. We're done here, but I'd like to make one more stop. I want to get as far up the north mountain as we can and see what the situation is like there. Then I think we'd best head back to Arendelle. This might just be a natural fluke of the weather, but Elsa still needs to know. If the passes do get blocked this early, then she may have to route some shipments by sea instead."

"Ooh, I've always wanted to travel by boat!" Olaf said eagerly. "Do you think Elsa would let me?"

Kristoff climbed onto the driver's bench as the snowman bounded up beside him. "What if you fell overboard?"

"Ooh, I've always wanted to learn to swim! Do you think Elsa would let me?"

There was a long-suffering sigh. Then, following a snap of the reins and a gentle tug to the left, Sven pulled the sledge through a tight turn and headed back down the mountain.

 _One thing is certain,_ Kristoff thought to himself as he checked the position of the sun to determine how much daylight was still left to them. _I don't think I'm ever going to be able to look at winters in Arendelle in quite the same way again._

* * *

 **A/N: I'm now on Tumblr. Don't really have much there yet, but if you feel like chatting about my stories (or anything else for that matter), feel free to come visit me at r2-m0. tumblr. com**


	3. Love and Loss

"Mmm, this is nice."

Anna snuggled closer to Kristoff's side and tugged the heavy woolen blanket more tightly around them. The arm around her shoulders shifted, drawing her even deeper into the warmth they were sharing. Her eyelids drooped a little. The heat from the fire and the comfort of Kristoff's embrace were putting her so at ease, a light doze began to seem inevitable. Even so, she did her best to hold it at bay. She was enjoying this quiet moment far too much, and it would be a shame to sleep through any of it.

"It definitely beats camping outside in this weather," he agreed. "Plus, I think I prefer cuddling with you over Sven."

"You think?" Anna asked, her voice full of mock indignation.

"Mm-hmm. Just don't tell him I said that, okay? He can be a little sensitive about these things, and bribes of carrots only go so far."

"And what are you going to bribe me with to make up for comparing me to a reindeer?"

"Okay, first of all, you ought to know by now that in my circles, that actually counts as high flattery. And second, I don't really know." He lowered his head to tenderly kiss her temple. "What do you think it's going to take?"

"Well… I'm not entirely sure just yet." She knew that her feigned sternness had already faltered badly, because a smile managed to slip past her guard. "But I have to admit, that's a pretty good start."

She felt his chest shake a little in time to his muted laughter, then felt his lips press against the top of her head. "Seriously though, you're right; this really is just about perfect. I never even realized that I had been missing this until these last few months."

Anna tipped her head back to look up at him, unsure at first what to make of the pensive tone she heard in his normally matter-of-fact voice. Kristoff stared at the crackling flames for a while before he spoke again.

"Before Sven and I were taken in by the trolls, I always thought that the two of us were getting by pretty well on our own. We rarely went cold or hungry, though there were a few times when that was only thanks to charity from the ice harvesters and their families. Still, I suppose I was young enough to believe that we were somehow doing it all by ourselves. And since we didn't have a home we could go back to every night, I just thought that was something we didn't really need.

"After I lost my parents, I found myself bouncing from house to house in our little village, rarely spending more than a few nights at a time in any one place. When the weather wasn't bad, I was actually just as likely to sleep outside anyway, especially after I found Sven. There weren't too many people keen on letting a reindeer inside their house for some reason. So when Bulda and Cliff wanted to adopt us, I figured why not? It seemed like it couldn't hurt to have one more bedroom to choose from.

"It took me a really long time before I finally realized that I was being offered more than just a place to sleep. They wanted to give me a home. I'd pretty much come to believe that was something I was never going to have again."

"Aww." Anna's voice carried a mixture of both sympathy and affection. She tried to picture a young boy and his reindeer, making their way in the world all on their own. Even with help from the villagers, she still found it hard to imagine how they could possibly have managed. Based on what she remembered of herself at that age, she was reasonably certain she could not have done the same. She felt a renewed surge of gratitude toward the trolls. If they hadn't taken in Kristoff and Sven, who knew what might have happened to them? Not to mention that, without help from that unlikely pair, her own fate – indeed that of the entire kingdom – could have turned out very differently.

"But if the trolls became your family," Anna said, still working her way through all that Kristoff's words had implied, "and if their valley became your home, then I'm not sure what it was you were missing. It sounds to me like you had finally found the place where you belonged."

"Yeah, I suppose we did. And don't get me wrong. Cliff and Bulda and Grand Pabbie, they've always been great and I love them all. In fact, once I got my own sled, I thought I had everything that I would ever possibly need out of life."

He rested his chin lightly atop her head. "I was wrong."

Anna closed her eyes contentedly, then turned her face away from the fire and pressed it against Kristoff's chest. She inhaled deeply, letting his scent fill her nose and lungs. The more time she spent with him, the more his smell changed. It wasn't the combination of musks and odors themselves that altered, however. It was more the way that she found herself responding to them.

She had to admit, they'd been a little overwhelming at first. As with most other things in her life, perhaps so many years spent sequestered within the castle had simply left her with far too narrow a palette of experience to draw from. The flowers in the garden, the aromas of Gerda's cooking, the stuffy scent of rooms long unused: these were the smells she knew best, but she really couldn't find any hint of those upon Kristoff.

Only in the time she had spent down in the stables did she find any common reference. Both had an earthy odor, a bit like the gardens after a spring rain only sharper. There was the smell of sweat, of bodies for which hard labor was simply a fact of life. She could make out the unmistakable bouquet that clung to those who worked closely with animals day in and day out.

Somehow though, when it came to Kristoff, all of that seemed to have become more concentrated and more intense, as though the entirety of the stables had been gathered into one man. All those different airs seemed to have permeated his very skin until they were now simply a part of who he was. Perhaps this wasn't so very surprising considering how much time he had spent isolated in the icy wilderness, where bathing often meant little more than a few splashes of water from a frigid mountain stream.

Next to him, the faint floral scents of her own soaps and perfumes seemed forever destined to simply become lost… and she didn't mind in the slightest. Because when they were alone together, especially during the calm and quiet times like the one they were sharing at that very moment, she was perfectly content to lose herself in him. There on the floor of the sitting room, wrapped in the blanket and in his arms, it seemed the most natural thing she could possibly do. She hadn't felt this warm, this safe, since…

"How much do you remember of your parents?" she asked softly.

She'd been prepared to feel his muscles stiffen, to find him pulling back from her at least a little in the face of such a deeply personal question. So it was even more surprising when none of those things actually happened. In fact, the only sign at first that he'd even heard the question was that one hand, which had been slowly stroking her shoulder, paused for a heartbeat or two before resuming its gentle massage. Even then, his answer still took a while to find its way out into the open air.

"Less than I would like," he admitted. "I think I still remember their faces, but it's been so long that I'm not really sure anymore. The earliest memory I have is of bouncing along in a pack on my mother's back. My father was following along behind us and every so often, he would glance down at me and make a funny face, just to make me laugh." Anna was glad to see that, even after so many years, the elder Bjorgman still retained the ability to amuse his son, for a nostalgic smile had crept onto his lips as he spoke.

"I remember sitting on my mother's lap outside in front of a fire. She had her arms wrapped around me and was whispering something into my ear. I've forgotten exactly what it was she said, but I'm pretty sure we were both looking up at the stars. That's something I still have that I know I got from them. I learned at an early age how to navigate by the night sky. It's an important skill to have when you spend so much time traveling far from the rest of civilization.

"Mostly, though, I just remember feelings. There were a lot of smiles and a plenty of laughter. I was happy then. We all were, I suppose. And then… well… everything changed."

So, too, did his voice. Just during the short span of that last sentence, its wistfulness had given way to something far sadder. Then it had stopped entirely.

 _I am such an idiot!_ Anna thought hotly at herself. _What was I thinking? Why did I have to go and ask a question like that? Everything was so nice, too. Even when I'm sitting down, I still manage to trip all over myself._

What she said out loud was, "I'm so sorry, Kristoff. I didn't mean to upset you."

He squeezed her shoulder. "Aw, you didn't. Honestly, I'm kind of glad you asked. I just realized how long it's been since I last really thought about them – my parents, I mean. With everything that's been happening lately, I suppose I've had other things on my mind. But even before then... life goes on, you know? The past is always there and it can be a nice place to visit, but you really can't live in it."

As he watched, Anna almost seemed to shrink, visibly withdrawing into herself. Even though she did not move away, he was nevertheless aware that a distance had suddenly formed between them. It wasn't large by any means, but it was all the more obvious in comparison to how close they had been mere seconds earlier.

"Okay, now I feel like I need to apologize. Was it something I said?"

The princess shook her head. "No. Well, not exactly. I just feel… embarrassed, I guess."

"Um, why?"

"Well because, you know, after my parents died, I spent a long time feeling sorry for myself. Elsa closed herself off again, and I felt like I was completely alone. I still had Kai and Gerda and everyone else in the castle. They all looked out for me – and for Elsa too, as much as she would let them. But I didn't want them. I just wanted my mama and papa back.

"All I could think about was everything I had lost. I would walk through the palace, through all the empty rooms with their beautiful furniture and paintings. I'd pass staff in the hallways, some of whom have worked here since before I was born, and they would always bow and offer a kind word or two. I would go out into the gardens where I'd be surrounded by every color imaginable and the songbirds would be singing from the trees.

"But I couldn't see any of it. All I saw were the things that weren't there: my parents, my sister, my best friend. My world had fallen to pieces, so I guess I was determined to do the same. I did a pretty thorough job of it, too."

"Anna, you were grieving! Nobody is ever quite themselves when they have to go through something like that."

"But that's just it! You were still so young when you lost your parents, and yet you didn't let it tear you apart like I did. You were far more alone than I ever was, at least until you found Sven and then the trolls. I can't even begin to imagine what that must have been like for you to be torn away from your family at that age, or how you possibly managed to get through it.

"When I think back now to how I reacted then, I feel like I was just a spoiled brat. I still had so much, but I ignored it all. I cried and I sulked and I wallowed in self-pity. You wouldn't have even recognized me. I hardly recognized myself."

She sniffled a little. "But what I had to go through was nothing compared to you. Plus, I had fifteen years with my parents before they… Well, the point is, you had so much less time with yours, and yet look at everything you were able to do on your own. Why shouldn't I be embarrassed?"

"Hey, losing someone you love is never easy," Kristoff said in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. "I don't care how much or how little time you had together, it's never enough once it's gone. I'm sure nobody blames you for hurting like you did. As for me, I've just been lucky."

"Lucky?" Anna asked as she looked at him again, this time in disbelief. "How do you figure that?"

"Well... I spent most of my life knowing that I've actually had two completely different families, both of which cared about me and wanted to see me happy. Now it seems like I might have even found a third. There aren't too many people who could say the same."

Anna's expression became thoughtful, and it remained that way even as she allowed her eyes to be drawn once again to the fire. "I still think about my parents a lot. I suppose that's probably because I walk past them on the wall almost every single day. Back then, it almost hurt worse to see them like that. Now though, it makes me feel like a part of them is still here, in the castle, watching over us, even though I know they're gone. That probably sounds completely crazy, doesn't it?"

"No, that isn't crazy. Crazy is trying to scale the North Mountain without any climbing gear while wearing mittens. Crazy is lobbing a snowball at a giant snow monster three times your size. Crazy is..."

"...carrying on both sides of a conversation with a reindeer?"

He chuckled. "Okay, you got me there. I was going to say crazy is an ice harvester falling for a princess, but we'll go with yours instead."

Anna reached up and playfully tweaked the end of Kristoff's nose. "I'm just happy that it's somebody else doing the falling for a change."

"What, you didn't fall for me too?"

"Of course not! I was engaged to a prince, remember?" They both shuddered. "Yeah, I've tried to forget about that too. But I think I fell _on_ you a couple of times, and there was that crazy trust exercise… does that count?"

"It's good enough for me. I'm still not sure if your sister approves, though."

"Oh, will you stop that? I don't know where you got this idea that Elsa thinks anything but the best of you. After all, wasn't she the one who named you Arendelle's..."

"...official Ice Master and Deliverer? Yeah, I still don't believe that's a real thing. I'm also pretty sure that title was actually somebody else's idea. Mind you, I don't doubt that whoever came up with it had to have been an exceptionally clever, inventive, thoughtful, and generous person."

"That sounds like Elsa to me."

"Well then, the two of you clearly have more in common than I thought."

Anna twisted around a little, stretched up, and planted a kiss on Kristoff's cheek. "Including the fact that we're both happy you're here. And by the way, your flattery is improving."

"Great. Now if I could just figure out what to say at the next formal palace function, I'd be set. Or maybe what not to say. Every time you drag me out to one of those things, I feel like everybody else is looking at me and wondering who let the help in. I end up spending the entire night just trying not to embarrass myself… or you."

"I'll have you know that I'm quite capable of embarrassing myself, thank you very much."

"Yes, but you're royalty. When you do it, people call it quirky or eccentric. If I so much as use the wrong fork, I swear they start whispering."

She giggled. "I'll bet you half of them are checking with their neighbors to see if they've been doing it wrong this whole time."

"You know what I mean! That was just one example. The point is that I really don't fit in here. I'd like to think that I fit with you, but I'm no prince. I'm sure that your parents would have wanted to see you with someone more suited to your station."

"Mother grew up on a farm and worked as a seamstress before Papa met her. Trust me, they would have loved you."

"I'm not so sure."

"Look, you know Josef from the stables, right? Well, they liked him just fine. Okay, it took Papa a little while to warm up to him, but after that..."

'Wait, what does that have to do with anything?"

Anna shrugged. "I was ten and lonely. Josef was friendly and handsome." Then she turned a smile on him that was as close as he'd ever seen her come to coquettishness. "I guess I must have a thing for quiet guys who are good with animals."

He frowned. "But that was just puppy love, not anything serious." This did not stop him from feeling a twinge of jealousy toward the stablemaster, though he did his best to ignore it. "I hope there's something more between us than just that. So how can you really say what your parents would have thought of me? You say they would have loved me, but how can you know for sure?"

"Because I do."

Kristoff's face alone managed to suggest that he was furiously scratching his head, even though his arms never moved. "You do what? You know, or you…?"

He didn't finish the question. Or, more to the point, he couldn't finish it. It turned out that another pair of lips had suddenly gotten in the way.

• • •

Elsa could not see. No matter which direction she turned, the world around her was white. Wind tugged at her dress, whipped her hair around her face, clawed and bit and howled liked an enraged beast. She staggered, fighting to keep her balance as she tried to make her way forward. Forward, of course, only meant in whatever direction she happened to be facing, since she had long ago lost all sense of direction.

She had no idea what she was walking toward, but she did know that she was searching for something. She simply could not remember what it was. Even so, she felt the urgency constricting her chest. Whatever it might be, she needed to find it quickly. She had the overwhelming sense that time was somehow running out, that if her search wasn't successful and soon, it would all be for naught.

The gale swirled, spun, changed direction. Suddenly, it blasted into her from behind with such force, it drove her to her knees. She might have cried out, but the sound never reached her ears. All she could hear was the ceaseless roar of the wind. It was as though the very elements themselves were set against her, mocking her, telling her that she might as well give up for she could never hope to succeed.

She tried to stand, but the angry air slammed into her again and again, pounding down upon her like the hammer of some fell giant. It was determined not to let her reclaim her feet. Walking was for people, for human beings with sense and purpose and pride. She was none of those things. She was an animal – savage and terrible and cruel – that did not deserve the dignity of standing upright. She was too lowly for such an honor. Creatures like her cowered upon the ground. Creatures like her were only ever meant to crawl.

So she crawled. If that was all she was to be allowed to do, then so be it. She would not stop. Advancing on her hands and knees, she continued through the blinding whiteness. She had to keep going. Every moment that slipped by was precious time lost forever. Each heartbeat felt like it might be the last one she would ever know.

Suddenly, pain shot up her arm and drove straight into her brain. She gasped, then looked down. Lifting up her hand, she saw the first splash of color in this desolate monochromatic wasteland. Drops of scarlet welled up out of her palm from several small holes. The shifting of her weight brought an echo of the same piercing sensation to the hand that still pressed against the surface beneath her.

What had been an almost glass-smooth sheet now was no longer. Instead, fierce little irregularities had seemingly sprung up, small but sharp as any knife tip. She attempted to turn to one side, hoping to find a different course that might prove less treacherous. Yet even as she did so, she felt the skin of her knees being scraped raw through the thin fabric of her dress. She tried to back up, to seek any route to safety, only to discover that she was now completely surrounded by a field of crystalline thorns.

There was no going back. There never had been. All directions were equally devoid of hope, but none were so utterly pointless as remaining where she was. Gritting her teeth, she pressed onward, eyes reduced to mere slits by the terrible wrath of the freezing wind. Her clothing caught on the sharp spikes – snagged and ripped and tore as she dragged herself forward. She paid it no attention. She did her best to ignore the pain as well, even as the icy needles became denser, longer, and entirely impossible to avoid.

The pain did not matter, for she had endured worse. Yet it was pain that drove her onward – just not that which arose from lacerated hands, torn knees, and abraded shins. There was an ache inside her, an emptiness as though something had been ripped out with greater violence than anything this storm had yet thrown at her. And that ache and that emptiness were both growing, threatening to swallow her and everything that she had ever been.

She kept going because she knew, to the very depths of her being, that all of this pain put together would be nothing compared to the agony that awaited her should she fail in her search. It was that thought and not her screaming nerves that threatened to send tears spilling down her face. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to hold them back. Besides, it wasn't like there was anything to see anyway.

That was when she felt it. There was a pull, the gentlest of all possible tugs. Not a push like the buffeting of the wind, but more as though the finest thread imaginable was wrapped around her very soul and some invisible force was plucking at it. Then she knew. Her eyes flew open and, with a tremendous effort, she pushed herself up into a stumbling crouch. All uncertainty fell away as she turned and headed straight for her destination.

She saw it first as a hazy silhouette, a dim shade of gray amidst the white. As she drew nearer, details began to coalesce, and what had been little more than a shadow slowly became form. With a cry of joy, she ran forward, heedless of the painful shards that snapped off beneath her feet.

The cry became a wail of despair as the snow parted and revealed the true colors of the world. The figure was no longer gray but rather a deep sky blue, flecked all over with patterns of white frost. It was leaning slightly backward, one hand raised in what might almost have been a greeting… or a farewell. There was a peculiar luminous quality about it as the light filtered through, which would almost have been beautiful under different circumstances. To Elsa's eyes, though, nothing could have been more horrifying.

"Anna!"

Her quest had come to its end, and as ever, she was once again too late. Flinging herself forward with reckless abandon, she half-embraced and half-collapsed against what remained of her sister. The tears now ran freely down her cheeks.

 _No, Anna. Don't go! Don't leave me! You're all I have left. I'm sorry. I am so, so, so, so sorry. I never meant for this to happen. I did everything I could to protect you, to keep you safe from me. Everything. And it still wasn't enough._

 _It's my fault. It's all my fault. I ruin everything. You don't deserve this. I do. I'm the wicked one. I'm the monster. That's what they called me, and they're right. I killed my own sister. I can't… I can't go on like this. I can't go on without you. I have no right._

 _I deserve to die._

Pulling away from Anna's frozen form, taking the weight of her mighty burdens wholly upon herself once again, Elsa tipped her head back and screamed with desperate rage at the heavens.

"Take me! Please, spare my sister and take me instead! She's done nothing wrong! It's all been me! Punish me! I won't fight it! I don't know why you gave me these powers, but take them back and me with them! I beg you! Please! Please..." A sob choked off her harshly distorted voice so that, when she lowered her head and looked again at her sister, only a whisper remained.

"Please. Just let Anna live."

She lifted a hand to gently cradle the frozen cheek, trying to will her prayers to come true. Anna had sacrificed herself to save her big sister. Now the only thing that Elsa wanted was to return the favor. But that too appeared to be denied to her, just like everything else she had ever wanted since she had been eight years old.

The stiffness that began in her fingers was almost unnoticeable at first. Then it slowly spread throughout her hand, continued up her arm. She watched with grim fascination as her pale skin changed before her eyes. It almost seemed to be absorbing the blue from where her fingertips were pressed against her sister's face.

True to her word, Elsa did not fight the transformation. She was barely even aware of the cold as it traveled throughout her body. All she felt was muscle and sinew turning rigid as they inexorably changed.

Pulling her gaze away from her arm, she fixed it once again upon Anna. She knew what was coming, now that her wish had been granted. Only one thing remained. She wanted her last moments to be filled with the sight of the only family she had left. She hoped that her eyes and her consciousness would last just long enough to see her sister restored. Then Anna would finally be able to move on with her life, free at last and forever from this dreadful curse.

The last hint of warmth was fading from Elsa's chest. She knew that the air in her lungs would be her final breath, but she did not hold it. That would be a waste. Instead, she painfully forced it up and out, through her seizing throat, past lips that were already numb and barely able to respond to her mind's slow and clumsy commands. A whisper would have been louder than what finally came out, but it was enough.

"Goodbye. I love..."

With that, Elsa moved no more.

And yet she found herself still staring at Anna's face. Even more shocking was that she found herself at all. She could not move, could not breathe. There was no sense of her heart beating inside her chest. Nevertheless, her awareness remained intact. For an instant, she could not understand. Then the terrible truth dawned upon her when she realized what it was that she was aware of. It was, after all, the only thing that she could see, for Elsa could neither turn her head nor move her eyes.

Her sister's visage filled her vision, and it had not changed. The eyelids did not blink. There was no flush of color in her cheeks. The wind that must surely still be blowing did not ruffle her bangs. She remained cold and lifeless and still. Elsa wanted to weep, but that was yet another thing that the fates had taken from her.

 _So_ _this is to be my punishment. I have been judged for all my wrongs, and now my sentence has been set: to spend eternity facing the worst of my evils. It is to be torture, then. I suppose it's what I deserve._

 _At least you got your wish, Anna – even if my curse has twisted and distorted it like everything it ever touched. After all this time... we are finally together. Just like you always wanted. And I will never leave you again._

Thus they stood while an eternity passed by. Then another. Time meant nothing to them now. How could it? It was a concept that was meted out in blinks and breaths and heartbeats, and they had none of those things. All they had was each other, the cold, and the silence…

TINK TINK TINK!

Elsa would have blinked in surprise had she still been able to. After all, that had sounded like… well, like a sound! But what was there to hear here? For that matter, how could she hear anything with eardrums that were frozen solid?

Then something passed before her eyes. And again. She struggled to make out what exactly it was, since she could not move to track it. It really didn't make any sense, but she thought it had looked like… like her own hand. But it couldn't be. Her hand was still right in front of her, exactly where it had been forever, pressed against Anna's cheek.

What appeared before her next was most definitely not a hand. It did belong to her, however, at least after a fashion. It just so happened to also belong to someone else.

 _Fare?_

Her own face stared back at her, wearing an expression in which concern and annoyance mingled equally. But for the upswept shock of black hair that crowned the other's head, it would have been like looking into a mirror.

 _I'm dreaming again,_ Elsa realized. _How many nights have I been forced to relive this moment? How many more am I going to have to suffer through before my demons finally leave me alone?_

Fare's lips moved, and though Elsa recognized the sardonic twist that came to her doppelganger's mouth so easily, she was unable to hear anything that it said.

 _What? I can't hear you._

The dark-haired girl frowned, then tried again. This time, though, she exaggerated the shapes of every syllable, obviously hoping to make herself understood in any way that she could.

 _I don't understand!_

Fare rolled her eyes in exasperation. Lifting one hand, she rapped her knuckles against Elsa's frozen forehead. The tapping seemed to echo inside her, vibrating throughout her entire body.

Elsa wanted to move, to speak. She tried. After all, hadn't she learned the secret to undoing her own magic? Love will thaw. Beyond Fare, she could still see Anna. What greater source of love could she possibly find? And yet, it did not help. She knew no love stronger than what she felt for her sister, but the grief and the fear and the guilt were stronger still.

She suddenly realized that her view of Anna's face was no longer obstructed. _Fare! Fare, don't go! Please, don't leave me alone here._

TINK TINK TINK!

There it was again, that same tapping sound. Only this time, she was just able to assign a direction to the noise. It seemed to have come from somewhere in the vicinity of her right ear.

 _Fare?_

She had neither breath to hold nor heartbeat to still, but she nevertheless strained for silence, hoping that a sound from outside might somehow find a way to reach her. She was trying so hard that she could not be certain she wasn't just imagining things when something seemed to tickle the inside of her mind. It was so faint, like the buzzing of a fly heard from clear across the Grand Ballroom.

 _Did you say something? I almost heard you. Fare, are you still there?_

What entered her consciousness next was as quiet as had been her final farewell to Anna, yet the tenor was unlike any whisper. It was the sound of someone shouting from an incredible distance away.

"She's coming!"

 _Who?_ Elsa thought in confusion. _Who's coming?_

"You need to be ready! There isn't much time!

"She's coming back!"

• • •

Elsa's eyes snapped open. Her mouth and lungs opened as well, hungrily drawing in a huge gasp of air as though she really had stopped breathing, just as she had in her dream. She tried to sit up, but for an instant, it felt like she could not move. Panic gripped her and she fought to push herself upright, the air threatening to explode out of her in a terrified scream.

Then there was a cracking and a snapping. Her torso finally shot upwards while prismatic fragments flew in every direction. Looking down, she involuntarily recoiled and a hand leaped to her mouth as she realized that her bedsheets were all coated with a layer of rough, jagged ice.

A brief but frantic scramble later and she was standing beside her bed, shaking uncontrollably as she took in all that her magic had wrought. What had happened here? What had caused this? This was hardly the first time she'd had this nightmare. Well, Fare's visit had been new, but the rest of it had haunted her far too often. And yet, even though she almost always awoke from it in frightened dismay, it had never caused her powers to run this horribly out of control before.

It took a significant act of willpower to pull her hands free from where they had taken refuge between her arms and body. She stared at them while they trembled like the last leaves of fall. Try as she might, she could not seem to still them. She felt the anxiety growing in her chest. Or was it something else stirring instead?

Before she even knew what she was doing, she had darted across the room and was yanking open the bottom drawer of her dresser. Rummaging through it feverishly, her fingers at last seized upon the familiar comfort that they so desperately craved. As she straightened, the moonlight from her window fell across the supple fabric, making the bright white cloth seem almost to glow. She had already thrust one hand inside (though her fingertips had initially missed the proper holes in their haste) before her actions finally hit home.

Elsa stared at her half-gloved hands as though they belonged to someone else and warred with herself over what she ought to do next. Completing the concealment seemed every bit as appealing as ripping off the glove she was already wearing and flinging both of them across the room. The balances on that scale were so finely matched, she stood there for at least a minute before she finally reached a decision.

Slowly and deliberately, she tugged on each finger of the one glove until her hand finally slid free. Then she set it neatly against its mate, folded the two together, and placed both back in the dresser. Only after she'd closed the drawer did her stiff shoulders droop, partly in relief and partly in acknowledgment that she still had a long way to go before she could consider her fears well and truly conquered.

All the same, she was making progress. Though she had temporarily ceded control to them, she had not given herself over completely. In the end, she had refused to act either in fear of her powers or in fear of that fear itself. It remained a victory, even if her opponent had managed to maneuver her into check... and very nearly mate.

Returning to her bedside, she again examined the literal sheets of ice that covered it. Closing her eyes for a moment, she called another image into her mind. She pictured Anna, only not the version from her dream. Instead, her sister was laughing while daubing at a rivulet of chocolate fondue that had run down her chin. Elsa felt the cold within her recede as a smile came to her own face. Then she reopened her eyes. With a slow wave of her hand, the ice vanished as though it had been erased.

It hadn't been perfect, though. As she ran her open palm across the covers, she could feel that they had absorbed enough water that they were all still rather damp. Oh well. She would have fresh ones put on come morning. As it was, she no longer felt particularly sleepy anyway. Though she had mostly managed to calm her body and emotions, her mind continued to race.

What had Fare's words meant? Who was coming? Had she only been trying to reassure Elsa that Anna wasn't actually dead, that she would be back and healthy again as soon as the queen awoke? She wanted badly to believe that. That would mean that the entire incident was now over and done, and she could just try to forget about it and move on.

Except that explanation didn't seem to fit. Fare had never been a part of the dream before, had never appeared to console her. Besides, she had also said that there wasn't much time and that Elsa needed to be ready. Neither of those made sense had she only been talking about Anna. Then there was the inexplicable outburst of her powers. It had been years since she'd experienced a loss of control that bad while sleeping – not since her parents had died, in fact. Even the recurring nightmares of the last few months had not led to anything like this.

Like guilt, fear was a companion that the queen knew all too well, and in much the same way, she was working to acknowledge and accept it for the warning that it was. The trick, of course, was that all emotions are most easily dealt with once you've understood the causes that triggered them. That was how she'd conquered her fears just a few minutes earlier. Once she had identified them, common sense and a level head had helped her push past them.

Unfortunately, that was also the crux of the problem she was facing now. She knew herself well enough to recognize that fear and anxiety were the things most likely to set her powers raging beyond her ability to control. Yet while the horrors in her dream had seemed plenty real, they had never before been enough to cause something like this. So if that wasn't the culprit, then what was? Because as much as Elsa would have liked to believe otherwise, she knew that denying the truth wasn't the answer either. And the truth was that something was unmistakeably different on this night.

The short hairs on the back of her neck were still standing at attention. Her arms were covered in goosebumps, even though no amount of cold had ever been enough to bring them out on her skin before. Her stomach felt like she had swallowed a stone… or, given the way it seemed to be rolling about, perhaps a young rock troll. And even in the wan moonlight, she seemed hyper-aware of every tiny detail in the room around her. Elsa was intimately familiar with this particular inventory of symptoms.

This was not the short, sharp terror that had gripped her earlier. This was the slow, creeping sort of unease that could linger and fester for hours, days, even weeks. It was the simmering dread that comes from being forced to watch the approach of something horrible that you know you cannot possibly stop, turn aside, or flee. She had felt something similar in the days leading up to her coronation, only that had been a mere shadow in comparison to what she was experiencing now.

In the depths of her soul, Elsa was terrified. She simply had no idea why. And that was perhaps the most frightening thing of all.


	4. Whence Comes the Winter

"Ah, Kai! A word, if you please."

The palace steward came to a halt in the middle of the corridor, turning to look back at the sound of his name. "Of course, Vendel. What can I do for you?"

It was always difficult to know what Vendel Dyrdahl was feeling because the man seemed to maintain an air of flustered irritation at all times, seemingly on general principle. Whether the redness that most often suffused his face was a result of this temperament or just part of what made others view him that way was never quite clear.

He was not particularly tall in stature – shorter than Kai, at any rate – and might be politely described as tending toward portliness. This did not prevent him from being something of a dandy. The clothes he wore were always impeccably tailored and cut in the latest of styles that could still be deemed properly conservative for a man of his station. What he wore on a daily basis would have served most men as dress attire for a formal reception.

That he could afford such finery was not due to some accident of noble birth. Indeed, Arendelle was too small a kingdom by far to be able to support the usual roster of dukes, counts, earls, and the like. Nobility pretty much began and ended with the royal family itself. No, Dyrdahl was simply an extremely well-educated man who, in his younger years, had engaged in a series of successful, if mostly short-lived, business ventures. These had often led him abroad, traveling all across Europe to strike bargains and cultivate relationships with important people in both industry and government.

His resulting prosperity had been due in no small part to the fact that his fastidiousness extended well beyond his personal appearance and grooming. He applied the same exacting attention to detail to everything that he did. It was this, along with his shrewd business acumen and extensive contacts abroad, that had earned him a place as an advisor first to King Agdar and now to his daughter. The same qualifications had led directly to his being selected to act as regent in the years before Elsa had come of age.

"I had been hoping to catch you this morning," he said now as he finally drew up alongside Kai. "There is a matter of some importance and, ahem, delicacy that I've been wanting to discuss with you for several days now."

"Oh? Well, I suppose it's no secret that my schedule is rather full at the moment. Has been for months, really. We've all been kept quite busy ever since the coronation. There's so much that needs to be done when a new leader takes the throne. Add to that the opening of the gates for the first time in years and there's been an almost endless stream of requests for audiences, diplomatic meetings, political receptions. You know how it is. Even so, all you had to do was ask. I'm sure I could have fit you into my calendar somewhere."

"Yes, well, I really did not want anything so formal as all that, you see. It wouldn't do to have anyone misconstrue this as an official meeting. If any of the other royal advisors learned of our little discussion, then they might decide that they ought to invite themselves as well, and that might prove to be rather... inconvenient."

Kai's face grew serious as words like delicate and inconvenient began to reinforce one another in the conversation. "How worried do I need to be, Vendel?"

The other man laughed. "Oh, it's hardly the end of the kingdom, Kai! No, merely a matter of some concern that I think would best be kept quiet, that's all."

"Ah. In that case then, please, do go on. I don't want to keep you any longer than necessary. No doubt you are every bit as busy today as I am."

"No doubt." Still, Dyrdahl hesitated, casting an eye up and down the passage. Even though there was no one to be seen, he nevertheless leaned in closer to Kai before whispering, "But not here. I would much rather we find some place a little more private for this particular discussion."

Kai considered the other man gravely. For all his assurances to the contrary, Dyrdahl was acting as though what he had to say was dire indeed. Impromptu meetings on the run, so to speak, were common enough around the castle, particularly when only two people were involved. Often enough, the few minutes spent walking from one commitment to the next were all the time that either party might have available to exchange critical information. Confidences of all sorts were shared on an almost daily basis via such quiet exchanges. If Vendel did not find that sufficient for whatever he needed to say, then this was certainly more important than he was letting on.

Of course, Dyrdahl was just as meticulous with the game of politics as he was with all things to which he applied himself. Whatever reasons he might have for this unusual degree of caution, he had doubtlessly thought them through to the nth degree long before he had ever approached Kai. There was little point in questioning them now, especially since it would be far quicker and simpler to simply go along with the man's wishes.

"Very well, then. Will my office be sufficiently discreet? I needed to stop there anyway."

"Quite, yes. Thank you. Please, lead on."

Their dialogue lapsed as they walked together down the long corridor. The lack of casual chatter struck Kai as yet another bad omen. He would have gladly broken the silence between them himself, except that his mind was too busy. Between keeping track of all the concerns he had already been juggling and now trying to guess what it was that this latest encounter would be adding to his plate, there was little room left in which to formulate small talk.

He would have been willing to consider that Vendel's silence stemmed from a similar source, but the man always came across as being so consummately organized. Kai imagined all of his thoughts as having been neatly tabulated and filed away with the extraordinary care of a particularly fussy librarian. Whatever might be going on in that mind at that moment, the steward highly doubted that it was in any way distracted.

The turn of a corner and a few additional strides brought them to their destination. Kai gestured for his guest to enter first then followed him inside, closing the door securely behind them.

It was not an exceptionally spacious room. In fact, it was actually the same office he'd first been given when he had risen high enough among the staff to deserve such a room at all. He had held on to it even while being promoted to positions of greater authority. Despite being offered larger accommodations by both Queen Elsa and her father before her, he had always refused.

For one thing, he spent so little time here as it was. His duties almost always saw him off in some other part of the palace, supervising preparations or attending meetings. He sometimes joked that the cleaning staff spent more time in the room than he did himself. Mostly, he viewed it as a place to house his records. What furniture it held (a desk, two chairs, and a crowded bookcase) were all high quality, and the view of the courtyard from his window allowed him to keep watch for expected visitors or deliveries. All told, the room and its contents served his needs most admirably.

He had given all of these reasons each time that he had declined to move. The one he had not given, however, was that the somewhat cramped quarters tended to discourage others from intruding upon him when he really did have work to get done that required his concentration and focus. Visitors tended to come for a reason, and they did not often linger once they had completed their business. Kai considered this a most excellent arrangement.

Dyrdahl helped himself to the guest chair without any invitation as his host moved to take the seat behind the desk. "Well, Vendel. What is you wanted to discuss?"

"The weather."

Kai couldn't completely hide his smirk at the incongruousness of that statement. "That's odd. I've overheard many a conversation regarding that topic over the years. Apparently, most people don't view it as one that requires a great deal of discretion or secrecy."

"Perhaps not. Then again, those same people have only recently become aware of Her Majesty's particular gifts regarding such matters."

The steward's lighthearted flippancy vanished in an instant. "So this isn't really about the weather then. It's about Queen Elsa?"

Dyrdahl raised a placatory hand. "Truthfully, I do not know, Kai. That's why I wanted to talk with you. You see, I have also overheard people talking about the weather lately, but it would appear that the two of us have heard rather different things."

Kai's mouth drew down into a grim line as he began to sense the direction their little chat was taking. If his suspicions were correct, it would not be one that he would enjoy overly much. So he opted to hold his tongue and wait for the proverbial shoe to drop.

"Kai, it's hardly a secret that this winter has been unusually harsh. It arrived early, and it has not budged since it first settled in. Snow has covered the ground for months on end now. Most mountain passes have been closed to all but the hardiest and most determined sledge drivers. We've been forced to repurpose several ships of the Royal Navy to help distribute goods and supplies because the merchant vessels can't keep up with the need to transport so much by sea. Nor does it help that some of the narrower fjords have become almost impassable with ice."

"Yes, that's all very true," Kai acknowledged with a nod. "It's also true that this is hardly the first time Arendelle has faced such difficulties. This current generation might not remember, but I'm sure their grandparents could tell them a few tales."

"Oh, the grandparents are talking just as much as anyone else, and they do recall times when we were in similar straits. Unfortunately, the most recent example of such a situation happened recently enough that even the youngest schoolchildren remember it. It was barely six months ago, after all."

"Vendel, surely you aren't suggesting…?"

"Whether I am or not hardly matters. The problem is that there are enough people out there who _are_ suggesting exactly that."

"That the queen is behind this weather? That's ridiculous! They all saw the way she cleared up the snow back in July., and the rest of the summer after that was perfectly normal. Why on earth should that have changed now? It's absurd."

"Is it?" Dyrdahl leaned forward in his chair. "Do you understand how Her Majesty's powers work? I certainly do not, and I assure you that the average citizen hasn't the slightest idea. Most of them still aren't clear what caused them to run amok back on Coronation Day to begin with.

"They've been remarkably accepting when you consider the situation. No doubt it helped that when the snow disappeared, all the plants and crops that had been buried beneath it somehow returned to full vigor none the worse for wear. The fact that the hardship was so short-lived perhaps made it easier for them to overlook it all. Had the harvest been impacted, I think we both know that the dissent would have been far more vocal.

"However, that peculiar bit of good fortune actually makes the queen's magic even more mysterious and harder to understand. People are used to a simple frost killing flowers and damaging fruit. That several inches of snow seemingly did no lasting damage has in some way made them even more afraid of it. Not only did it appear out of nowhere and disappear just as suddenly, but it refused to behave the way they've come to expect. Now, they no longer know _what_ to expect. So when something strange happens – especially when that something strange involves snow and ice – of course they're going to wonder. Why wouldn't they?"

Kai's scowl deepened. Loathe as he was to admit it, everything the former regent was saying made an uncomfortable amount of sense. A tapping sound drew his attention downward, and only then did he realize that one of his fingers was rapidly drumming against the arm of his chair in agitation. In an effort to stop the nervous tick, he curled his hand into a fist… which then hammered once on the armrest instead.

"Well, that's just our luck, isn't it? As if we needed such a pointless distraction at the moment. It was bad enough just trying to cope with all the normal problems that come with a new leader taking the throne. This accursed weather has only made that all the more complicated. Now we have to deal with nonsense like this too? I swear, sometimes I feel like there's some perverted conspiracy afoot to plunge the entire kingdom into chaos."

Dyrdahl chuckled. "Ah, wouldn't that be reassuring? How much easier would it be to ferret out a handful of troublemakers than to deal with the countless vagaries that life likes to throw at us."

"We need to find a way to nip this in the bud, Vendel. We have to reassure the people that this is nothing more than nature at its unpredictable finest."

"Are we sure that's all it is, though?"

Kai stared in obvious surprise. "Surely, you don't believe…?"

"I don't know what to believe. As I said, there are many things here that I simply do not understand – Her Majesty's abilities chief among them. I do not think that she would have done this knowingly, but it is not clear that, in the past, she has always been aware of every exercise of her powers. Who is to say that something similar is not happening again now?"

"But why? Why would everything be perfectly normal for months after the Great Thaw only for her to suddenly lose control now?"

"I'm sure I don't know. Perhaps the approach of winter affected her somehow."

"It never did for the twenty-one years before her coronation."

"She was also wearing her gloves then, doing her best to conceal her powers. That is no longer the case. In fact, she now seems more than willing to show off her magic. Just look at the skating party she threw for the entire town after she returned to the throne, or how she and the princess were playing with some of the children in the courtyard a while back. She made a bear out of snow, for heaven's sake! As far as I know, it's still loitering out in the gardens."

"Yes, well, the children seem to like it. They practically begged Her Majesty not to send it up to the Ice Palace, at least until the weather warms up again. Besides, it seems docile enough. It's no more of a threat than Olaf."

"Hmph," Dyrdahl grunted. "Tell that to the soldiers who traveled with Prince Hans to the North Mountain and encountered that creature she had set on guard there. What does she call it? Marshmallow? It certainly didn't take much provocation for it to reveal its true and fearsome nature."

"Vendel, they shot it with their crossbows! I suspect you'd be rather cranky too if the same thing happened to you. Besides, I don't imagine any of the youngsters will be doing anything of that sort to their bear friend."

"Be that as it may, isn't it just a bit disturbing that the queen is able to bring snow to life? Not merely shape it and make it move, mind you, but somehow imbue it with a mind of its own? I mean, until now, I always believed that creating life was a privilege strictly reserved for gods."

"And mothers."

Now it was Dyrdahl's turn to frown. "Kai, I know that you have been close to the royal family for some time now, and to Her Majesty in particular. During my time as regent, when it was my duty to be preparing then-Princess Elsa for her ascent to the throne, we both know that she sought you out for advice far more often than she ever looked to me."

The steward shrugged. "Before her father's death, when she would leave her room and try to learn at his elbow, she still wasn't comfortable being around many other people. I'm pretty sure even I made her nervous at first. But since I worked so closely with the king on most days, I think she finally began to relax around me simply by virtue of familiarity. After she lost both her parents, you can hardly blame her for turning to those few with whom she was the most comfortable."

"My point," came the brusque reply, "is that you need to take care not to let your loyalty interfere with your objectivity. I understand that you feel somewhat protective of our queen. However, I think it is important for you to remember that our duty is first and foremost to the crown, and not necessarily to the one who is wearing it.

"We have a responsibility to the people of Arendelle: to ensure their safety, their freedom, and their livelihoods. It is an obligation that I take very seriously, and I hope that you would do the same."

The eyes of the two men met, matching each other glower for glower. "Of course I do," Kai declared sternly. "So isn't it fortunate that our queen feels exactly the same way. It really makes any question of loyalty an extremely simple matter. Wouldn't you agree?"

Dyrdahl considered his next words carefully before he spoke again. "Certainly. As I indicated earlier, I do not doubt Queen Elsa's motives. I'm merely concerned that her control over her powers might not be as complete as everyone believes it to be. We've all seen evidence of it slipping from time to time, have we not? Remember the hiccups? Combine that with this unusually harsh winter and everything that we know she is capable of, and the rumors became nearly inevitable."

"Vendel, we've both been in politics long enough to know that there will always be rumors. Few of them will ever be true and even fewer will be flattering. If we attempted to quash them all, we would never do anything else!"

"Nor am I suggesting we go after them all. There are some, though, that would be folly to ignore, and it is my belief that this is one of them. We may only be talking about whispers now, but if this weather continues, you can be certain that they will grow louder. Once that happens, it would not take much for rumor to become accepted truth, and it is always far more difficult to change people's minds about something they believe they already know."

Kai appeared to deflate as he recognized the wisdom behind these words. "So what would you suggest we do?"

Dyrdahl sat back in his chair again, steepled his fingers before him, and appeared to think quietly for several moments. "Perhaps we should begin," he said at last, "by broaching the matter with Queen Elsa herself."

The steward winced. "I'm not sure that's wise. Worry and anxiety tend to hinder her control more than anything. If she finds out that some people are blaming her for this, then whether it really is her fault or not, we may only make matters worse."

"Kai, worry and anxiety are not things the ruler of a kingdom can easily avoid. The decisions she makes affect all of our people now, for good and for ill. If she is incapable of coping with stress, then I fear we may eventually find ourselves with more serious problems than a mere excess of snow."

"I understand that. It's just..."

"She needs to know, Kai. Ignoring the problem will not make it go away, nor can we conceal it from her forever. Sooner or later, the rumors will reach her ears. Would it not be better that she hear it from those she trusts instead?

"If she is in any way responsible for this weather, even if only in part or without being aware of it, then perhaps having it brought to her attention will allow her to find a way to exercise greater control. If she is as blameless as you say, then perhaps she can at least do something to allay the people's fears. Even if she simply issued a statement or proclamation regarding the matter, that could help immensely."

Slowly, Kai nodded. "Very well then. We will bring the issue to the queen's attention. However, I would ask for one favor. Please leave this to me. I am still concerned that Her Majesty may take accusations such as this quite personally. It may be that the blow will be softened if it comes to her from a friendly voice."

Dyrdahl smiled. "Naturally. Why do you think I approached you with this in the first place? It is entirely understandable and indeed desirable that you should wish to discuss this with her personally and privately. I completely approve. Moreover, I find it reassuring to know that the queen considers you to be a friend. The role of a monarch rarely allows for many such close personal connections."

"I'm not at all certain that my relationship with the queen goes quite so far as friendship," the steward demurred politely.

"Oh, you're being far too modest."

As far as Kai was concerned, though, modesty had nothing to do with it. He had very much meant what he had said. He and the queen had developed a certain rapport by virtue of time spent together and the connection they both shared to her father, but he felt that calling it a friendship would be going several steps too far.

He did not bother attempting to correct his associate, however, for he doubted Dyrdahl would believe his protests. Nor did he correct the man's assumption that he would take the matter to the queen personally and privately. He also had meant what he'd said about Elsa needing to hear this from a friendly voice.

Kai would most certainly see to the matter. That did not mean that he would do so alone.

• • •

The library had become Elsa's sanctuary. During the years leading up to her coronation, while she had struggled to prepare herself for the throne, she had spent more time there than in any other room of the castle besides her own. Back then, she hadn't been able to face the prospect of working in her father's study. She hadn't felt worthy, and the weight of everyone's expectations always seemed heavier in there, so she had mostly adopted the library as her own during that time.

Even now, though she had finally transitioned to the more formal office, she still retreated to the library whenever the pressures of ruling threatened to become too overwhelming. Books had been close friends to her during her long years of isolation, so their presence alone helped to comfort her. Then there were the many fond memories she had of time spent there with her mother, indulging in their shared love of poetry. She had even added a bit of her father to the room as well, so that coming here felt a little like visiting them both again.

Given the nagging anxiety that had plagued her ever since she had awoken from that horrid dream, she could really use the company.

"Elsa?"

The queen looked up from the chessboard, turning her attention instead to the barely opened library door. A bit of red hair, a flash of green skirt, and a bright blue eye were all that she could see through the gap, but those were more than enough to identify the speaker even if she hadn't recognized the voice.

"Come on in, Anna."

The door opened far enough to allow her sister to saunter in. This was curious enough that Elsa raised an eyebrow, for Anna rarely sauntered. There was a casualness about her walk that actually was anything but. She crossed the room, knelt down upon the chaise lounge, leaned her elbows upon its back, and peered at the game board.

"Who's winning?"

"Hard to say at the moment. He has a few more pieces in play than I do, but I think mine are better positioned."

Anna shook her head. "I still don't know how you can do that."

"What, play both sides of the game?"

"Yeah, except that's not really what you're doing, is it? You aren't playing against yourself. You're playing your side of the game, sure, but you're playing _his_ side of the game too."

Elsa smiled. "Well, we played against each other so often, I almost can't help it. I got to know his strategies, the way he viewed the board, when he would attack and when he would retreat. It's almost harder for me to think of the black pieces moving any other way.

"The only problem, of course, is that no matter how well I knew his style, Father could always still surprise me when I least expected it. It's a little bit harder to surprise myself."

"I wish I could play with you, but I just can't seem to get the hang of it." Anna frowned at the puzzling array of little black and white figures. "I understand the way the pieces move and all that, but there's no way I can think as far ahead as you do."

"I couldn't always do that either. That was something that only came with practice. I'd be happy to help you learn, you know. I would even play with a handicap, the way Father started out when he was first teaching me. It would be nice to have someone else to play with again."

"Oh, I'm afraid I wouldn't be much of a challenge for you. Besides, I know how busy you are these days, what with running the kingdom and everything. I'm sure you could think of better things to do with your free time than frustrating yourself trying to teach me to play chess."

"The point is that it would be something the two of us could do together. What could be better than that?"

"Well..." The princess glanced up at her sister, then bit her lip and hurriedly looked back at the board again. "Maybe."

Elsa was left with the distinct impression that Anna had not intended for her to notice that quick little look, which seemed decidedly odd. So was her sudden and intense scrutiny of a game in which she had never shown much interest before. Then there had been her earlier display of almost calculated nonchalance. It all added up to one thing.

"Anna, you didn't come here to talk about chess, did you?"

The guilty look on her sister's face would have been answer enough, but Anna was apparently unwilling to leave it at that.

"Well, no, not specifically. I mean, chess is good. I like chess. Or at least you like chess, and I like that you like chess, so that's all good, right? And it's not like I would want to come talk to you about something that you didn't like, you know, like Brussels sprouts or..."

"I like Brussels sprouts."

"You do? Really? Eww! Don't they kind of freak you out a little? After all, they're really just… just tiny little cabbages that you can fit into your mouth all at once. When I was younger, I was always afraid that if I accidentally swallowed one whole, it would suddenly grow to full size in my stomach and I'd just sort of explode, which I realize now makes absolutely no sense, but I still get a little nervous any time Gerda serves them with dinner, and..."

"What I believe Her Highness is trying to say is that no, we did not come here to discuss chess."

Elsa turned again to see Kai now standing in the entranceway, considerably chagrined as he executed a formal bow. "Your Majesty."

"Do either of you want to tell me what this actually is about then?"

Anna exchanged a meaningful look with Kai over her shoulder before she pushed herself back off the lounge and onto her feet. It was difficult to tell which of the two visitors was more uncomfortable at that moment, but Anna was the one who finally answered her sister's question.

"Elsa, the people are a bit... worried."

"Worried? About what?"

"Not all of the people," Anna hurried to clarify, "but there are some who have concerns about… about this winter."

The queen nodded. "I'm not surprised. Arendelle hasn't seen snowfall like this in decades. Even so, there's no great cause for alarm just yet. The storehouses still hold ample supplies. It's true that travel and trade have been hindered somewhat, but that happens every winter to some extent. Perhaps we'll have to make do without a few creature comforts for another month or two, but there should be no shortage of the basic necessities."

"I don't think that's the problem."

"Well then, what is?"

Elsa tried first to meet Anna's eyes and then Kai's, but both seemed too self-conscious to return the gesture. Their evasiveness was beginning to grate on Elsa's patience. "Look, if this isn't about chess, then I would really prefer we not play any other games either. Please stop dancing around the subject and just tell me already. Didn't we make a promise not to keep secrets from each other, Anna?"

Anna nodded, albeit reluctantly. Then, despite her obvious misgivings, she forced herself to once again meet her sister's gaze.

"Some people think that you're responsible for this winter."

Elsa sighed. "Oh, is that all?"

Anna's eyes grew wide. "Wait, you knew?"

"No, not exactly, but I assumed it would have to happen and probably sooner rather than later.

"Every snowflake that falls on Arendelle now and for years to come is bound to bring back memories of Coronation Day. That was part of the reason why some of my first acts as queen were to order that extra provisions be set aside for the winter. I wanted to make certain that all our citizens would be as safe and comfortable as possible when the snow finally fell. I knew anything that went wrong would only remind them of those few frozen days in July. Of course, I didn't anticipate anything this bad, so even those stockpiles might be running a bit thin by the time spring arrives. Still, it can't be helped. If we're lucky, the weather will break before things get too bad. And if we aren't so fortunate, then it's all the more reason we need to cultivate as many new partners in trade as we possibly can.

"Um, Anna? Are you okay?"

It took a few seconds before the princess realized that her mouth was hanging open. Shaking herself, she stared at Elsa for a while longer, then looked down at the game board that still rested between them.

"There's no way I will ever be able to beat you at chess, is there? How could you possibly think through all of that after everything you'd just gone through? You could have given me a whole year and I wouldn't have come up with half of it!"

Elsa lowered her eyes in mild embarrassment. "Father was a good teacher."

It was Kai's turn then. "But if you suspected this," he asked, "why didn't you say anything? If we had all foreseen this problem earlier, perhaps we could have done something together to mitigate it."

A pained smiled appeared on Elsa's face. "I can't be apologizing every time it snows, Kai. If I tried, it would only serve to make people more suspicious. This is who I am. It's true that I kept it hidden for most of my life. I was so afraid of it that I nearly let it define me. I could hardly see myself as anything more than my magic.

"But I'm not that same person anymore. At least, I'm trying not to be. I need to be more than that. I'm the queen now. I'm learning to be a sister again. And somewhere in there, I'm still trying to figure out who I am on my own.

"My powers are a part of me, but they aren't all of me. The people need to see that too. I have to show them that I can be an effective leader, like my father before me, no matter what the weather. So I have done my best to handle this the way he would have, and I will simply have to hope that in the end, the results will be enough to convince our citizens that they have nothing to fear from me."

"I never said they were afraid," Anna interjected. "Just… concerned."

"Of course they're afraid. Believe me, that's something I know well. The things we don't understand are the easiest to fear, and nobody really understands my magic. There's so much about it that's still a mystery, even to me. I've gotten better at controlling it, certainly, and yet I can't help but feel like I've only scratched the surface. After all, I somehow managed to plunge the entire kingdom into what could have been an eternal winter, but I have no idea how I did it and I'm not at all certain I could make that happen again if I tried. Not that I would want to, of course, but that's just one example. After all, I still don't even know how I got these powers in the first place."

The two sisters were looking intently at each other, which is why neither noticed the way that Kai's brow furrowed. Nor did they see the expression upon his face, which would have clearly announced to either of them that he was engaged in some internal debate with himself. Ultimately, they were even oblivious to the fact that he had finally begun to open his mouth to speak. So it was that Anna unintentionally cut him off before he had even managed to make a single sound.

"Elsa... are you really sure that you aren't causing this weather?"

Most of what Elsa's eyes conveyed in response was surprise. There was, however, a touch of hurt there as well.

"Anna, you don't really think that I would…?"

"No! No, of course not. It's just that… Well, back when I followed you up to the North Mountain and found you in the Ice Palace, you didn't know. You weren't aware that you had done anything. You didn't even realize that Arendelle was frozen over until I told you. So I just wondered if you're really able to tell whether or not you're doing anything now?"

Elsa came incredibly close to snapping out, "Of course I can tell." She only managed to restrain herself at the last instant when she realized two things. First, that such a reaction had been born from a sudden and intense defensiveness that was even now still gripping her heart. And second, that the defensiveness itself had arisen because she found herself unable to provide an honest and satisfactory answer to the question.

"But… but that time, I was terrified. You know it's easier for me to lose control whenever that happens. Since then, though, things have been so much better. I've been happy. We've been happy. There's been nothing to make me that scared again."

"Your Majesty," Kai ventured tentatively, "you yourself just said that you were worried about the way the people might react to the onset of the first winter under your rule. Is it not likely that, as the season grew closer, your anxiety would have grown as well? It wouldn't have been as sharp and immediate a fear as what you experienced on Coronation Day, but could that have simply led to a slower buildup, covering the kingdom over a period of weeks instead of mere hours?"

The queen looked shocked. "Are you… are you saying that my worries about winter _caused_ this winter?"

"I don't know. I'm only suggesting it as a possibility. As you say, we still know so little about your powers and how they work. For that reason, there is little that we can rule out at this point, so we must consider all explanations. Even the unpleasant ones."

Elsa glanced back at Anna, only to see a face that was taut with concern. Nervously, she took a step back from the table upon which the half-finished chess match still lingered, then turned and began to pace rapidly back and forth.

Could it be? Could her magic have slipped again without her even being aware of it? An hour ago, she would have said it simply wasn't possible, that those days were behind her. But the truth was that she had no way of knowing. She didn't have any sense of having done any such thing, but that was the entire point. Any claim she might make that she knew nothing was happening without her knowledge was inherently self-contradictory.

And if it was true, then what? How could she stop doing something that she wasn't even aware she was doing? For that matter, how would she know if she succeeded? Then again, it might be every bit as likely that there really was nothing to stop. Who could say for certain? There was absolutely no way to tell the difference.

She felt her head beginning to swim and a dull ache forming at the back of her skull. Thinking in such circles for too long could drive a person mad. The fact that her feet were tracing out a path every bit as repetitive wasn't helping either.

"Elsa?"

"I… I need to think about this. And I need some fresh air. I… I have to go."

"Elsa!"

She heard Anna's voice call after her as she hurried out of the library and headed down the corridor at a pace that was most certainly beyond what would normally be considered respectable for a queen. Servants and staff bowed as she rushed past, but she was far too distracted with her own thoughts to notice. Her feet swept her forward almost of their own volition, guiding her on the shortest possible route through the busy hallways and to the palace's front entrance. She burst out into the courtyard, immensely grateful to see the sky above her even if it remained a stubborn, wintry gray.

Letting her legs carry her a little further still, she finally came to a halt in the middle of the open area directly between the too dormant fountains. Closing her eyes and tipping her head back, she drew in a deep breath. The air did not seem cold to her – few things ever really did – but it still felt clearer and cleaner than anything she could ever find indoors. It reminded her of the winds that had swirled about the mountaintop during the raising of the Ice Palace. Here and now, they helped to restore some of the same clarity she had felt on that night.

She tried not to focus on the fact that the clarity did not actually bring answers along with it. She was simply grateful to feel the buzzing inside her head subside. Not for the first time, she had cause to wonder if it was possible that her magic might not flow in only one direction. Through her powers, she could create ice and snow, but it sometimes felt as though their mere presence also served to strengthen her. It was yet another mystery that seemed unlikely to ever be fully explained.

The sounds of a sizable commotion intruded upon her thoughts. With a sigh of exasperation that her quiet little moment had been interrupted all too soon, she opened her eyes to seek out the cause of the ruckus. It did not take long to find. It was unfolding straight in front of her.

A number of Palace Guardsmen were clustered together in the gateway, effectively barring the passage through the castle's outer wall. Elsa could not understand why they should be doing such a thing. As she had promised Anna, the gates were always open now during daylight hours, allowing all in the town to come and visit the grounds as they wished. What possible reason would the soldiers have to deny someone entrance?

A single raised voice, sharp and commanding, came back to her from among the group of uniformed men. She recognized it at once as belonging to the Commander of the Guard, Colonel Fritz Holberg.

"I'm afraid I must insist, Ma'am. You may enter the castle if you wish, but your animals must remain outside."

Well, that did little to clarify the matter. It was hardly uncommon for carts and sleds to be driven into the castle to make deliveries, and the stables were always made available for the care of horses or even the occasional reindeer. Elsa could not see why that should prove to be any sort of impediment to entry today.

There was the sound of a woman's voice, but it spoke in reserved tones that kept Elsa from being able to make out the words from such a distance. The colonel's reply was clear enough, however. "I appreciate your concern. However, my concern is for the safety of those within these walls. For that reason alone, I cannot permit them to enter. It would be far too dangerous. You have my word that, if you leave them here, no harm will come to them."

The laughter that came in response carried far better on the frigid air than any of the words that had so far been exchanged. As Elsa watched, the soldiers shifted position, apparently feeling that the need to enforce their commander's orders with force might be imminent. Concerned by their change in attitude, she took a step forward, hoping that perhaps she might intervene before such drastic measures proved necessary.

Suddenly, green-clad bodies were flying through the air as though flung about by a tremendous explosion. The fortunate ones landed upon the drifted snow, plowing deep furrows through the powder before it finally arrested their momentum. Several weren't so lucky, however. Their arcs slammed them into the thick pillars that supported the upper walkway rimming the walls. The sickening sound of cracking ribs mingled with agonized cries of pain.

Before any of the Guardsmen had managed to rise to their feet again, before any of their comrades had managed to descend from the walls to add their support, a large form appeared in the gateway. A moment later, it had passed out of the shadows and into the courtyard. And as the one shape resolved itself into several separate ones, Elsa at last understood.

The sled was entirely white – seat, walls, and runners – yet it was far from plain. The sides were covered with intricate carvings of exquisite detail the like of which she had rarely seen. A woman sat upon the driver's bench, straight-backed and proud. She wore a long cloak of the palest blue, trimmed with white fur. Flaxen hair hung down from beneath her tall hat, framing a face that was nearly devoid of color save for a pair of piercing blue eyes. Her hands held the white reins with the light confidence of one who's relationship with the animals on the other end is so close, the straps become almost unnecessary. In her case, this was made all the more impressive by the nature of those animals.

Two massive polar bears had been harnessed to the sleigh, standing tall enough that they could nearly look Elsa straight in the eye. There was no hint of stain upon their coats, leaving them as white as the snow upon which they stood. Their black noses twitched almost constantly while they took in their surroundings, as much by smell as by sight. One yawned lazily, briefly revealing the deadly teeth of a natural hunter.

Elsa found it difficult to look away from the beasts, but the power of the woman who could control them was even harder to ignore. The driver moved then, gracefully rising to her feet to stand tall within the sled. Her eyes slowly panned once around the courtyard, somehow leaving no doubt that once was all she needed to take in even the most minute of details. Then she lifted her chin slightly and, in a voice that rang out like the chime of a perfect crystal, declared her intentions to all.

"I wish to speak to the queen of this realm. She will present herself before me at once.

"I have come to take her home."


	5. Queens of Ice and Snow

For several seconds, Elsa thought she had somehow fallen back into her nightmare again. She stood rooted to the spot, unable to move as she stared at the striking woman who had so brazenly burst into the castle. Not a sound could be heard, primarily due to the fact that every other person in the courtyard was every bit as stunned as their queen.

In the end, the silence was finally broken by one well-trained soldier's ability to rally in the face of the unexpected.

"I do not know who you are or where you come from," Colonel Holberg announced as he climbed to his feet and drew his sword, "but here in Arendelle, one does not begin a petition to see the queen by first attacking her subjects. Step down from the sled immediately and submit yourself to the authority of the Palace Guard, or we shall use any and all force necessary to restrain you."

The mysterious woman tutted in apparent disappointment. "Really now. You would attack a woman, and an unarmed one at that?"

"I will defend this kingdom and its people against anyone who poses a threat to them. Based on your little demonstration a minute ago, I would say you certainly qualify. Now surrender yourself or face the consequences."

By this time, all of the Guardsmen still able to stand had now gathered in the courtyard, forming a ring around the white sleigh, its team and its driver. Each man brandished a weapon. Most of these were pointed at the woman but for the few that had been trained upon the bears instead. It was not an unimpressive display of military prowess… even if the aim of a few of the younger soldiers was impaired by their shaking hands.

Pale lips curled into a small smirk. Then, with movements so graceful that she almost seemed to be gliding, their unknown visitor stepped down off the deck of her sled and onto the deep snow that blanketed the ground. Not into it either, but onto it. Even though the long cloak obscured the view, there was no doubt in Elsa's mind that the feet beneath it had completely failed to sink into the yielding surface.

For their part, the soldiers were hardly paying attention to such trivial details. They continued to sight along their weapons, making sure that no room was left for a sudden surprise. Unnervingly, their guest acted as if they were not even there. Instead, her focus remained on the Commander of the Guard, and it was to him that she spoke again.

"You will take me to see the queen. Or if you prefer, you may bring her out to see me. I'm not all that particular so I will leave the choice up to you, but you may rest assured that one of those two things will happen."

"You have a great deal of confidence for someone in your current position."

"Oh, but you have no idea what my position is. I suggest that you send someone to fetch the queen immediately, before you have the misfortune of finding out."

"I take my orders from Queen Elsa, not from you."

"Orders? I have given no orders. I have merely stated the way that things shall be, and since I am sure you would agree that it does not do for man to interfere with the natural order of things, then no doubt you will want to do whatever you can to see them brought to pass."

"I will not continue to bandy words with you, ma'am. That is not my job. The job of a soldier does, however, require me to do rather unpleasant things from time to time. Therefore, I say again: surrender yourself at once. I admit that I find the idea of injuring a woman distasteful, but I assure you, I will not hesitate to do so if you continue to resist."

"Of course you won't. Men like you never do. People hesitate because they are considering the consequences of their actions. Only simpletons and soldiers act first and think later. But then, I suppose I repeat myself."

Her sly smile took on an air of self-satisfaction as the Guardsmen reacted to the insult. For some, it was no more than a tightening of the muscles around the eyes. Others swore under their breath. Fingers adjusted their grips on hilts and triggers. The tension in the courtyard, already dangerously high, ratcheted up another notch or two. Perhaps it was for the best, then, that a distraction chose that particular moment to arrive.

"Elsa!"

More heads turned in the direction of the voice than strictly should have, considering that a few of the more inexperienced soldiers allowed the shout to briefly draw their attention away from where it belonged. They were fortunate that their slip did not much matter. The only move their would-be prisoner made was to turn her head to watch with mild curiosity the redheaded woman who had burst out of the castle.

Anna dashed up to stand beside her sister, grabbing hold of an arm as she came to a stop. She was slightly breathless, apparently having run the entire way as quickly as her legs would carry her. "I wanted to follow you right away," she said between gasps, "but Kai convinced me to let you go. He said we needed to respect your wishes and give you time to think, and I really didn't want to pressure you or anything, so I just stayed in the library. But then I saw you out the window, so I was watching when everything happened, even if I couldn't make out exactly what was going on. Then as soon as I saw people flying through the air, I couldn't just stand there any longer. At that point, Kai didn't even try to stop me, so I ran straight down here and..."

Elsa laid a hand atop her sister's, which must have been reassuring enough to at least stop the flood of words that had been pouring from Anna's mouth. The queen, however, was among those whose gaze had never wavered from the strange woman in their midst, even upon Anna's arrival. The princess's attention was now drawn there too, particularly when the woman spoke.

"Elsa?" Her eyes flicked ever so briefly in Colonel Holberg's direction. "As in Queen Elsa?"

Drawing herself up as proudly as she could, trying to channel every shred of her father's strength and her mother's poise, Elsa nodded. She did her best to maintain the regal pose even as she watched the other woman's eyes slowly examining her from foot to crown. She felt as though she was being inspected less as a person and more like a horse that was up for sale. It was not a comforting sensation.

"Who are you?" Elsa asked at last, growing tired of the silent appraisal. "What is it that you want?"

"I should have recognized you." It was not exactly a reply given that it answered neither of the outstanding questions, but at least those startlingly blue eyes were focused again upon Elsa's face, even if their intense scrutiny had not lessened. "It has been a while, I'll grant you, but I rarely forget a face. And yours is so very much like your mother's, after all."

All self-control has its limits, and that one statement was enough to leave Elsa teetering on the edge of hers. Her eyes grew wide and she drew a sharp intake of breath. She felt Anna's hand tighten upon her bicep, felt her sister move closer against her side, and she knew that she was not the only one who had been caught off guard by the careless comment.

"You… you knew my mother?"

"We met. Many years ago – before you were born, actually – and only briefly. I'm quite certain she would not have remembered me." Something about the smile that accompanied these words was incredibly disconcerting.

"Why have you come here? And why did you attack my men?"

"I did not attack. They simply refused to move and let me pass, so I moved them myself. As for why I am here, I thought I had made that perfectly clear. I came to see you, my dear. To see you and to take you home."

"What are you talking about? This is our home!"

The icy eyes moved slightly to consider the new speaker. "And you are?"

"Anna. Elsa's sister." The princess's expression was one of stubborn possessiveness as she gave back a fiery stare.

"Hmm. Then I suppose this quaint little castle may well be your home, but it is not Elsa's. Her place is with me. I have come to take her back to where she belongs."

"She's not going anywhere with you! She's..."

"Anna." Elsa's quick glance and sharp tone were enough to end her sister's verbal protests, even if they did not manage to put a stop to the glare that Anna continued to level at their visitor. Elsa turned again to look at the unusual woman. When she spoke, it was in the voice she reserved for the most sensitive of diplomatic negotiations.

"Why would I leave my kingdom, my people, and my family to go with you? You have made many bold statements, but you have given no reason why I should heed any of them. You have not said where it was we would be going. You have not even done us the courtesy of introducing yourself. In fact, the only thing you have done is assault my people. If your goal is to persuade me to leave with you, then you have chosen a very peculiar way to go about it."

"My apologies," the woman said with a polite nod. "Please forgive me. You are quite right. I am afraid I have not had much opportunity to practice my social graces for a very long time. More than that, though, I have spent many years waiting patiently for this day to come, but now that it is finally here, I seem to have let my enthusiasm override my judgment.

"Oh, but perhaps I might be forgiven for that. Why, just look at you! I honestly did not know if it would work, but it did and even better than I had hoped. I had awaited a sign, some indication, but there was none to be seen. I will admit, I was disappointed. The passage of time was not all that long in the grand scheme of things, but after a quarter of a mortal life had slipped by, I had nearly given up hope. And then..."

She laughed, and it was an oddly incongruous sound. There was an air of agelessness about the woman, of untold years hiding behind a visage that seemed superficially to be quite young. Yet her laugh was that of a schoolgirl – a giddy giggle, full of all the joy and promise that life had to offer.

"Show me!" she exclaimed. "I have heard enough rumors and reports that I no longer doubt the truth, but I still want to see it for myself. Please." She took a step closer to Elsa.

"Do not move!" bellowed the Commander of the Guard. "I have given my oath to protect the ruler of Arendelle, and I will do whatever it takes to do so. You have been warned!"

"What?" Elsa managed to ask. "What am I supposed to show you?" She had a sinking feeling she already knew the answer, but she needed to be sure.

Ignoring the officer's cautionary words, the woman took another step forward. "Oh, do go on," she prodded, her eyes glinting with an all-too-eager excitement. "Show me your magic!"

"That is as far as you go," the colonel cried out again as she advanced another pace. "One more step and you will leave me no choice but to open fire."

Slowly, the blond head swung to fix the Guardsman with a look of mingled annoyance and amusement. At some point during the two women's conversation, Fritz had sheathed his sword and exchanged it for a crossbow, which was now leveled directly at her chest. Unlike those in the hands of some of his younger subordinates, the tip of the arrow did not waver in the slightest.

The two stared at each other along the length of the feathered shaft, engaging in a brief contest of wills. It did not last long. She took her next step.

With a twang, the bolt sprang from the weapon, crossing the short distance in the blink of an eye…

...and fell to the ground at its target's feet.

She bent down then, grasped the rod between her slender fingers, and lifted it up to eye level for a casual examination. As she turned it this way and that, the shaft sparkled in the thin wintry light. It took only an instant for Elsa to realize why. From nock to tip, the entire arrow was covered in ice.

Elsa looked down at her hands. One still lay atop Anna's while the other dangled between them. There was no sign of frost, no telltale blue sparkles to be seen. She hadn't felt the subtle surge that came when she allowed her power to well up from within her and slip out into the world. Her control seemed to still be completely intact. And yet...

"You?" she gasped, her head snapping up as she gaped incredulously at the cryptic stranger. "What did…? Did you just…? How did…?"

The Snow Queen smiled, extending her hand toward Elsa. "Now it's your turn," she said.

"Elsa? Elsa, what's going on? Did you do that, or…? Who is she?"

She wanted to turn to face her sister, but Elsa could not tear her eyes away from the frozen arrow that lay across the woman's outstretched palm. In any case, the only answer she was able to give was a dazed shake of her head. Realizing how utterly inadequate that was, she opened her mouth, struggling to force a brain numbed by shock to piece together a sensible sentence.

For better or for worse, she was spared the need.

"Hi ho, Polla!"

From around the corner of the castle, a mounted rider appeared, speeding across the courtyard and heading straight for the middle of the tense confrontation. As the pair drew nearer, even the more seasoned soldiers couldn't quite help but glance in their direction. It was difficult not to, for they showed absolutely no sign of stopping.

"Whoa, Polla! I said whoa, Polla! Who-o-o-a-a-a!"

A small white streak shot through the air to land in front of the two sisters. Part of it stopped there, but the rest skidded across the snow for several more meters until it finally came to rest just inside the ring of Guardsmen. It was from this part that a muffled groan arose.

"Man, I really need to work on that dismount. I can't keep losing my head like this. But right now, I just need to pull it together. Butt! Right now! Pull it together!"

Olaf's body sprang up from the spot where it had fallen, then began to stumble around, twigs groping in front of it like a blindfolded man trying to find his way through an unfamiliar room. Clearly, it was attempting to reunite with its head. Unfortunately, all it was actually doing was walking around in a tight little circle.

Anna, taking pity on her friend, let go of Elsa's arm. Bending down, she spun the torso and legs around until the coal buttons were facing in the proper direction, then gave a gentle push. It required one slight correction in the form of a nudge from a soldier's boot, but eventually the questing arms found what they were searching for.

"Ah, that's better," the little snowman sighed as he screwed his noggin back into place. Then he finally looked up to see the tall woman who stood only a short distance away, and who was staring back at him with an enchanted smile on her face.

"Oh, hello there. My name is Olaf, and I like warm hugs!"

She clapped her hands together and once again laughed in utter delight. "Oh, that is wonderful! And Elsa made you? Marvelous! Simply marvelous! I take it that your friend over there is Polla, then?"

"Yup. She's kind of new around here, so I've been trying to teach her how to fit in. Fortunately, she's really good at making new friends." Olaf turned around to find the snow bear. "Ooh, look! She's made another one already!"

Sure enough, Polla had walked right up to one of the two bears that was harnessed to the sleigh and was sniffing it curiously. The real bear seemed to tolerate this in much the same way that an older dog puts up with a playful puppy, passively indulging the youngster even while mostly uninterested in the game itself.

The Snow Queen turned her smile upon Elsa, and there it grew all the wider. "My dear, you truly do have an innate talent. A little rough, perhaps, but certainly a solid foundation upon which to build. With time and training, there will be virtually no limit to what you will be able to accomplish. At last, my patience has been rewarded. Come, we really should be going. It is a long journey, but I promise you, the time will pass quickly. After all, we will have so much to talk about!"

"No." Elsa shook her head.

"No? Of course we will! I want to hear everything you've done so far, everything you've managed to learn on your own, everything you've struggled with. And there's so much for me to teach you. I would have preferred to have started when you were younger, of course, but I had no sign that you even possessed the gift. Still, we shall have plenty of time to make up for that."

"No!" Elsa's reply was louder this time, more adamant. "I'm not going anywhere with you. I don't know anything about you! You still haven't told me who you are, let alone how it is that you seem to have the same powers that I do. And what, if anything, does my mother have to do with any of this?"

"There will be plenty of time for such questions..."

"Besides, this is my home. I belong here, in Arendelle. I am the queen, after all. I cannot simply run off on a whim." _Not again,_ she added to herself. "Arrangements would have to be made for the governing of the kingdom in my absence. Any number of things could happen while I was away."

"I daresay they could and they will. After all, once you leave with me, you will not be returning here ever again. So isn't it fortunate then that you have a sister who can take your place upon the throne?"

"Wait, what?" The words exploded simultaneously from both Anna and Elsa.

"Really now, this foolishness has gone on quite long enough. Come along, Elsa. It's time for you to reclaim your birthright."

Elsa was not given the chance to respond. Instead, Anna stepped forward, placing herself between the two blond women. "You heard my sister. She isn't going anywhere, and certainly not with you. I won't let you take her. I just got her back, and I'm not about to let anything separate us again. So I suggest you climb into your sleigh and go back to wherever you came from, and we'll all just forget any of this ever happened, okay?"

The cheerfulness that had colored the Snow Queen's face for some time now vanished in an instant. "Do be quiet, you silly girl. This does not concern you." She waved her hand in an imperious gesture.

Suddenly, the snow around Anna's feet began to mount upwards, forming a bell-shaped mound that swiftly climbed up her legs. Even as it grew, it began to slide sideways, bearing the princess away like some great white creature that had swallowed her up to her waist.

"Anna!" With almost no thought behind her actions, Elsa quickly raised her hands toward her sister. Blue flecks of light gathered upon her fingertips before leaping outward, striking and penetrating the moving snow. It seethed, temporarily torn between the commands of two masters. Then it began to climb, higher and higher, carrying Anna up, up…

Half of the snow sloughed away, and Anna slid down the curved face that was left behind. As she came to a halt at the bottom of the ramp, the mound behind her collapsed, vanishing back into the thick blanket that covered the paving stones.

"Anna!"

It was not her sister who called out her name or ran to her side. A second or two later, she was being helped to her feet, and she looked up into the eyes of a very worried ice harvester.

"I'm fine, Kristoff," she promised him a little weakly. Yet despite her attempts to reassure him, she couldn't quite help but lean on him for support while she willed her legs to stop shaking. As she waited for that to happen, she peered past him. She wanted to get back to Elsa's side as quickly as possible, but until she could trust herself to walk, she at least wanted to know what was going on.

By this time, a sizable crowd had arrayed itself in front of the palace. Servants and staff, having heard the commotion, had set aside their duties and hurried outside to find out what was going on. Few of them were paying much attention to Anna and Kristoff just then. Most eyes were fixed upon their queen.

Elsa had taken on a pose that fell somewhere between a fencer and an archer. She had turned sideways to her opponent, one arm thrust forward, the other drawn back and held high near her cheek. Her brows had drawn down into an angry glare and her blue eyes flashed.

"You will not touch my sister!" As if to punctuate her words, sparks flickered within her palms, every bit as sharp and cold as the tone of her voice. There was a growling sound too, which at first startled Anna. She couldn't believe that such a noise could come from Elsa's throat. Then she realized that it had not. Polla had backed away from the bear she had been investigating and now stood, feet spread wide apart, the snow along her back rippling like raised hackles. Her mouth was pulled back into a snarl, and the bright glint therein told tales of icy teeth that had not been there before.

Infuriatingly, a smile had returned to the other woman's face. "Well done! Oh, you do have talent, don't you? Still, you surely do not believe that you could truly stand against me. I merely wanted your sister out of the way. Had I desired to do anything more..." She shrugged.

"I don't know who you think you are," Elsa replied darkly, "but no one threatens my family."

"You do not know who I am?" Mirth danced along the edges of the woman's voice. "My dear, I'm afraid you don't even know who you are yourself!"

"I am Elsa, Queen of Arendelle, daughter of Agdar and Idun, sister to Anna, heir to the orb and scepter..."

"You are heir to so much more than that. You are my legacy. You are my creation. In a way, you are my child."

"I am no such thing."

"Yes, you are. Do you not understand yet? I made you who you are today. Haven't you ever wondered where your powers came from? Surely you have. Now at last, your answer stands before you. They were my gift to you, Elsa, given before you were even born."

"What?" Elsa shook her head. "No. No, I don't believe you."

"Did I not tell you that I met your mother? She was walking alone in the woods, and she was with child. We had actually met once before, when she was but a child herself, and even then she had intrigued me. Perhaps it was merely her name that caught my fancy, but I kept an eye on her after that. I watched her from afar and waited, much as I have with you. When the opportunity finally arose, I took it. Now I know at last that the seed I planted on that day has born fruit. Now, I have come to take back what is rightfully mine."

"No. You… you're lying." It was clear that Elsa had meant this to be a stark denial of the story that was being presented to her. In that goal, she failed spectacularly. The determined look on her face melted away, replaced with one of confusion and doubt. Both arms drooped slightly, and the magic that had been scintillating along her fingers sputtered and died.

"Wait a minute," interrupted a slightly squeaky voice. Olaf, who'd been almost forgotten amidst the unfolding drama, had barely moved from where his head had stopped. Now he was rubbing his chin, giving every appearance of being engaged in some strenuous mental activity. "If you created Elsa, and if Elsa created me, then that would make you..." All at once, his face lit up, and he gasped as his mouth opened into a huge smile.

"Grandma!" he cried, spreading his arms wide and starting to toddle toward his newfound relation.

"Olaf, stop! Come back here right now!"

And stop he did. When it came to actually backing away, though, he hesitated. "Why?" he asked, turning to look at Elsa. "Isn't she family too?"

"We're your family, Olaf: Anna and Kristoff and Sven and I. I have no idea who this woman is, but she's… she's not family. I don't trust her. She's dangerous. She hurt people. Please, come back where it's safe."

Olaf was clearly torn. He once again looked up at the Snow Queen, his expressive features practically trumpeting his indecision. "Oh," he said at last. "Okay. Sorry."

As the little snowman reluctantly withdrew from the ring of soldiers, Elsa experienced a fleeting pang of guilt. It didn't help that she was not in the least bit certain for whom Olaf's last word had been intended.

The cloaked woman frowned. "Really now, Elsa! You're acting like a petulant child. I had hoped that, once you had seen that you and I are alike, you would at least be curious. This is most disappointing. I can see now that I will have far more work to do with you than I had first anticipated. Ah, well. Fortunately, we shall have plenty of time to improve your attitude, once we get you away from this place."

"How many times does she have to tell you? Elsa isn't going anywhere!"

Anna had finally made her way back to her sister, with Kristoff moving to stand behind them both. Olaf, acting unusually subdued, had planted himself a short distance to one side. All of them were watching their uninvited guest with expressions of defiance, concern, protectiveness, and confusion. The visitor sighed.

"I am a very patient woman," she said wearily, "and if it were only me, I would happily continue this little comedy for as long as it amused you. If I thought it would actually lead to you seeing reason, I would not mind continuing to indulge your obstinacy. As it stands, however, the journey from my home has been a long one, the return trip will scarcely be shorter, and there will be much for me to attend to when I return. More to the point, I can see now that I made a mistake coming here today."

"Finally, something we agree on," Kristoff muttered under his breath.

"Yes, I erred when I waited to see whether or not my experiment had succeeded. I should have whisked you away from here when you were still a child, before you had a chance to become so stubborn, before you were so completely indoctrinated into the ways of these mundane creatures. Then this all would have been far easier for the both of us. But clearly, my previous attempts led me to doubt myself. After all, they drove me to take the chance that I did with you. I see now that I should not have been so overly cautious thereafter.

"It is well past time that you joined me, Elsa. It would have been better for everyone if you had come of your own volition, but since you will not, then I suppose mine will simply have to do instead."

She glanced down then at the arrow that she still held in her hand. When she looked back up and her eyes met Elsa's, a smile spread across her face that conveyed none of the girlish joy it had known earlier. The arrow twitched, and snow began to move. It rose in a column from the ground before her, and as it grew, it took on shape.

It was the shape of a man, but not the crude approximation that thoughts of snowmen would normally bring to mind. The figure was perfectly proportioned and finely sculpted, looking for all the world like a statue masterfully carved from alabaster. The way it was revealed – head first, shoulders and torso following immediately thereafter – almost made it seem as though it was not actually moving but that the snow surrounding it was draining away to uncover a form long buried beneath. When the feet finished forming, the head (which had been lowered, chin tucked to chest) rose up. White-on-white eyes stared straight ahead.

A bright spark flared in its right hand, and from either side of the clenched fist, a crystalline curve arced outwards. The figure raised its arm straight out to the side and, turning its head, sighted along the limb. The left arm came across the body and, though there was no string upon the newly-formed bow, its fingers nonetheless made as if to grip the thin air. As the arm drew back, a shaft of ice, sharp and sheer, materialized behind it. By the time the hand reached the archer's cheek, the arrow it held was complete and pointed straight at Elsa's heart.

Her alertness might have faltered earlier, but now Elsa steeled herself once again. Her eyes locked onto the fingers that held back the arrow, ready to respond to their slightest movement. She let her power well up inside her chest and flow down her arms. Her own fingers tingled as the magic licked along them, eager to be set free. Her mind raced as she tried to anticipate the archer, readying herself to fling up defenses.

Focus can be a terrible mistake when it is misplaced.

A scream of agony tore across the courtyard. Nearly every head whipped around at the gruesome sound.

"Fritz!" Anna cried.

The colonel's crossbow dropped noiselessly into the snow as his left hand tried to clamp down upon the bleeding wound in his shoulder. His efforts were somewhat hindered by the icy shaft that still protruded from it. Before he or anyone else could recover from the shock, his body spasmed then slowly crumpled to the ground as another frozen arrow pierced deep into the muscles of his calf.

Only then were they all able to clearly see the second snow archer who had arisen some distance behind the Guardsman. Even as they watched, he drew back another arrow and again took aim.

"No!" Elsa bellowed. The snow immediately in front of the white figure exploded upward, mounting to two and then three times its height before it slammed down like a vicious wave on a storm-driven sea. The winter warrior completely disappeared beneath the crushing weight.

The first archer took advantage of the opening and fired, but it did not enjoy the same success as its comrade. A stalagmite of ice erupted from the ground, deflecting the arrow halfway to its destination. Elsa's hand flew upward. Two huge slabs of ice materialized on either side of her attacker then slammed together, crushing him instantly.

These altercations played out so quickly that, by the time they were over, the soldiers of the Palace Guard had only just begun to realize what had happened to their commander. Then, a dozen bolts were loosed from as many crossbows, all speeding toward the same target. None of them even got close. A column of arctic air suddenly whirled up about the Snow Queen, sending the arrows spinning off in every direction.

A series of gasps from the onlooking crowd alerted their queen. All around the ring of guards, more figures were pushing up through the snow. This time, though, they rose from the ground with their weapons already in their hands. Translucent swords and battle axes gleamed wetly as white arms drew back to strike.

Elsa darted forward, then stamped one foot down as hard as she could. It did not sink into the powder, for the point where it impacted had already turned to solid ice. This shot outward at breathtaking speed in a wide and sweeping curve that passed beneath every last snow soldier in a heartbeat.

In the next, an impossibly thin ice wall shot upwards around the entire circumference of the ring. What it lacked in thickness, it made up for in the sharpness of its upper edge. It sliced through the attackers like an inverted guillotine, cleaving them all neatly in half, before then shattering with a sound like a hundred broken windows. The shards fell to the ground along with chunks of now harmless snow.

"Stop this!" Elsa demanded. "Leave these men alone!"

"But they are soldiers, my dear," the tall woman responded indifferently. "Is it not their job to fight and die in service to their kingdom?"

"Not today, and not as long as I am their queen. I will not let you harm any more of them!"

"Oh, is that so? Well then, perhaps I should turn my attentions elsewhere."

A terrified shriek issued from one of the servant women, followed immediately by a shout of alarm from a man on the other side of the crowd. Elsa spun around, knowing full well the risk of turning her back to her opponent but far more concerned right then with the plight of her people. At first, the mass of bodies that had gathered outside the palace hid the source of the frightened cries. Then suddenly, as realization spread, the crowd surged away from the two afflicted souls.

Solid blocks of ice had already encased the feet of both victims. Even as the assemblage watched, the ice crept higher, passing over ankles and beginning a swift march up their shins. Man and woman alike fought to pull themselves free, but all their attempts proved futile.

Elsa flung out her arms, one toward each guiltless pawn that had been caught in the middle of this unexpected showdown, and let a different sensation swell within her bosom. In an odd sort of alchemic reaction, the love she felt for her people mingled with the power that was already there. Taking careful aim, she let the altered magic burst forth in two powerful flows.

Nothing happened.

An agonizing moment passed before she realized that the ice's advance had at least ground to a halt. But she had been trying to melt it completely. She poured even more magical energy out through her fingertips, her face tightening in concentration. Still, the stalemate held.

She managed to unclench her jaw long enough to shout. "Bring hot water! Ice picks! Fuel for a fire! Anything! I… I need help. I can't do this alone."

The queen's orders finally pulled the dazed onlookers out of their stupor. Several rushed back into the palace to fetch the requested items. "There are tools in the stables," Kristoff said. "Some of them might be able to help chip away at that. I'll be right back." Elsa didn't dare turn to watch him leave, but she heard the heavy sound of his running feet as they crunched their way through the snow.

"Why are you doing this?" she ground out, hoping her voice would carry to the woman who still stood behind her. "What do you possibly hope to accomplish? You can't truly believe that attacking the innocent would convince me to join you."

"No, of course not," the silky voice replied calmly. "During the course of my lifetime, I have learned a great deal about how to guide people onto their proper paths. Some respond to flattery, others to promises. Some can be moved by threats and fear. A precious few will listen to logic and reason. It is something of an art to be able to find the most fitting method for any given individual, and one that I have had plenty of time to study. I like to think that I have gotten rather good at it."

"If you believe what you're doing is going to change my mind about coming with you, then you aren't as good as you think."

"Oh, my dear child, I already told you that this is not an attempt at persuasion. This is merely a diversion."

Every instinct screamed at Elsa to spin around on the spot, a reflex that she just barely managed to control. Even so, she could not quite keep her body, already tense from the strain of maintaining such a powerful flow of magic, from flinching. The cries that rose up from near the palace made it clear that even such a tiny lapse had allowed the encasing ice to gain the advantage, climbing now almost to knee level. Yet even as she labored to fight it to another standstill, a different shout from much closer by made her concentration almost collapse completely.

"Elsa!"

Her head whipped around just in time to see a new snow figure – cruder but also larger and more powerful than the ones that had come before – wrap its thick arms around Anna's torso and lift her bodily off the ground. The princess's legs flailed wildly, then kicked backwards at her assailant. Each strike of a heel managed to dislodge a chunk of snow, but these were simply replaced as soon as the foot drew back for another swing. Though she continued to struggle, it did nothing to stop the towering form from turning and beginning to carry her away.

"Anna!"

"Don't shoot!" one of the Guardsmen warned his comrades. "You might hit the princess!"

Elsa tried desperately to find some way to divert even a fraction of her power to her sister's aid. A frigid wind began to blow, spinning about her like a whirlwind and expanding slowly outwards. The soldiers closest to her beat a hasty retreat as snow and sharp blades of ice were lifted into the air. Unfortunately, even these projectiles suffered the same shortcoming as arrows or spears. Any attempt to attack with them risked injuring Anna. Perhaps if Elsa had been able to devote enough attention to guide each one to its target… but her resources were already stretched to their limits.

There came a great bellowing roar, and a huge mass of white moved at the edge of Elsa's vision. A split second later, it landed with a vicious snarl upon the snow golem.

Polla had transformed. She seemed at least half-again as large as she had been before. Razor sharp claws of ice had sprouted from her paws, and these had quickly set to work tearing into the other creature's back. Her teeth snapped at its head and neck, seeking to decapitate it. Thus beset, the kidnapper staggered as the massive weight that was literally bearing down on it lurched to and fro, endeavoring with every lunge to drag it down.

Suddenly, two new arms sprouted from the golem's torso, and they began to mercilessly pummel its attacker. In a battle of snow versus snow, this failed to inflict much damage, but it did succeed in loosening the bear's grip. That alone proved to be more than sufficient. With a thrust of unbelievable strength, they sent the ursine assailant flying through the air to land in a skidding heap some distance away. Shaking her head dazedly, Polla labored to stand again. Then with a feral growl, she crouched, ready to launch herself back into the fray.

Someone else leaped first.

One of the actual polar bears had extended itself to the utmost reach of its harness, and its massive forepaws ripped great gouges down Polla's flank. Its magical cousin, operating now on little more than animal instinct, forgot her original target and wheeled around to face the new threat. She was in a frenzy, determined to defend her home and her friends. Any veneer of civility she might have displayed around Arendelle's children – her cubs – was now gone. All that remained were two primal urges: protect and attack. And so she did.

Both bears reared up on their hind legs, then collided in a violent display of tooth and claw, snow and ice. They grappled, each striving to topple the other, for the one left standing would have an enormous advantage of weight and leverage.

It was over almost before it began. Polla had never found herself in such a fight before, while the other bear had survived the harsh arctic winters and faced off against many of its own kind before being taken in by its current master. The snow bear fell with a piteous yelp. Without hesitation, both of the Snow Queen's bears quickly descended upon her. Soon, there was nothing left to be seen. Even the black pebbles that had made up her features were lost, buried by trampling paws.

At last, the men and women who had rushed into the palace returned. In their arms were logs and iron pokers scavenged from the nearest fireplaces, pots filled with steaming water, small chisels and picks that had been scrounged from any location that could be found. One forward thinking individual had even managed to wrest free from their brackets two metal grates upon which to place the logs in an attempt to keep them dry.

Hastily, snow was cleared from the ground as best as could be managed. Tinder was piled upon the grates, as close as they dared place them near each victim. Matches were struck. Flames sputtered, unable to decide whether or not to catch. Meanwhile, the boiling water was already being poured over the pillars of ice.

 _She could stop them so easily,_ Elsa thought. _A gust of wind to blow out the fires. A sudden drop in temperature that would prevent the hot water from melting anything. It could even end up simply adding to the problem. The only thing she can't stop completely is me, and she knows it. As long as I have to maintain my magic here, I can't even protect my own sister. Anna!_

"Anna!"

Her own anguished cry echoed in her ears, but it was not her voice. Kristoff had just exited the stables and had immediately caught sight of the lumbering behemoth that was continuing to carry off the redheaded princess. Abandoning what he had gone into the outbuilding for in the first place, he let the tools he had gathered fall to the ground. Breaking out into a run, he sprinted across the courtyard, heading straight for Anna.

But he was too late. The ungainly snow creature had by now reached the white sled and there deposited its burden upon the seat. It straightened. Anna, seeing what appeared to be an opportunity, tried to scramble across and out the other side. All she managed to do, however, was fall heavily over onto the bench. Her knees and ankles had both been bound by shackles of ice. The golem reached down and pulled her back up into a sitting position. Thick bands of ice then clamped her arms and shoulders tightly against the backrest.

The Snow Queen walked back to the sleigh and stepped up to stand beside her captive. With a dismissive twirl of her hand, the last snow creature collapsed with a flump. A wave of the other hand, and a mighty blast of wind slammed into Kristoff. The ice harvester, who had managed to make his way closer to the sledge than any of the soldiers had, was nearly lifted off his feet. As it was, the force of the impact was enough to send him cartwheeling backwards. He sprawled to a stop right beside Elsa with a loud grunt and a whoosh of expelled air.

"I traveled all this way to find you, Elsa, and to take you back to the place where you were always meant to be. That you would reject your destiny is unfortunate. It is also unacceptable. Since you will not see reason, then I am not above resorting to other means.

"If you will not come with me, then perhaps you will come after me. After all, I can assure you that it is the only way you will ever see your sister again."

Even as the woman spoke, Elsa felt a deep rumble through the soles of her feet. Before she could fully register the sensation, it had risen to her ears and filled the courtyard. The entire castle shook in sympathy to the thrumming sound. People teetered drunkenly all around them, even as the Guardsmen attempted to close the gates and trap the white sleigh inside the castle.

"Please!" Elsa shouted. "Don't do this! I'll go..." But she could barely hear her own voice over the cacophonous noise.

The very air seemed to have thickened with a low vibration. Then suddenly, it was shattered by a strident splintering. Elsa's eyes were immediately drawn downward to the giant crack that had formed in the snow perhaps a meter in front of the two bears. As she watched, it grew, stretching further to either side. Additional loud popping sounds produced other cracks that expanded and merged with the original until soon, they formed a rough circle all the way around the animals and the sled.

The driver moved, though she shunned the reins. Instead, she thrust both of her arms into the air with the flourish and energy of a diver at the tip of a springboard. Within the ring formed by the fissures, the snow on the ground shimmered. Then there was a flash of light so bright, it was nearly blinding, and with it came a violent wind that whipped Elsa's hair savagely about her face. She blinked, trying to clear the afterimages from her vision. Then she felt her jaw drop open.

The light had not issued from the snow. In fact, there was no snow. In its place was now a thick sheet of ice, perfectly smooth and as polished as any mirror. Even the pale rays of the winter sun seemed to be magnified within its crystalline depths. But the true source of Elsa's amazement was that the massive slab of flawless ice was somehow floating in the air... and rising rapidly.

"I'll go with you!" she screamed again. "Please, let Anna go and take me instead!" Her offer went unheard. The wind snatched her words, tore them to ribbons, and sent them spiraling away. She could see Anna's lips moving as well, even as the sled climbed higher into the sky and began to move away. Though her ears could not make out her sister's cries, in her heart, she knew that Anna was calling both her name and Kristoff's, looking to them for salvation, trusting them to save her.

"Olaf!" Elsa yelled, frantically turning to look at the man standing beside her. "Olaf has to go with Anna! Do you understand? This is important! With Anna!"

"Right!" the snowman cried out, already dodging between them and flapping his arms like mad. "Of course, this would be a lot easier if you had given me wings!" Even over such a short distance, he was having to shout just to be heard above the wind.

The next thing anyone knew, Kristoff sprinted forward, scooped Olaf right off the ground, and with a mighty effort, heaved him skyward. Elsa diverted just enough of her magic to stabilize his flight so that he landed directly – if somewhat roughly – in the open cargo area behind the sled's passengers.

If the Snow Queen minded the extra passenger, she gave no indication. She merely smiled down at the two forlorn figures, nodded once, and then turned her eyes northward. The prismatic island had already been drifting in that direction, but it now picked up speed at a truly alarming rate. Clearing the castle walls, it was almost immediately lost to sight.

In that same instant, the howling wind collapsed and the ice that Elsa had been battling ceased to fight back. In the blink of an eye, the torrent of magic she had poured out of herself not only evaporated the ice, but all of the snow disappeared from a third of the courtyard.

It was just as well, because she had no more left to give. The warm emotions that could alter her magic in that way now faltered and failed, to be instantly replaced with a different set that felt far more familiar to her.

Fear. Guilt. Loneliness. Helplessness.

One by one, they crashed down upon her soul like the weight of mountains until it seemed that she could no longer stand it. And then, she simply could no longer stand. She fell to her knees with a heartrending wail, clutching her arms about herself as the tears rolled down her cheeks. Kristoff stood beside her, too stunned by his own despair to offer any comfort.

High, gray clouds rolled across the sky with unnatural speed until they soon blocked the face of the pallid sun. As the light faded, the temperature dropped. A biting wind swept over the town and the castle, sending shivers down nearly ever spine. Eyes turned upward, knowing the feeling that hung in the air all too well.

As its queen knelt within the castle walls, her body racked with uncontrollable sobs, snow began to fall over Arendelle.


	6. Flight from Arendelle

"Elsa. Elsa, get up. We… we have to go. We have to follow Anna. We can't let her get away."

Kristoff's voice sounded distant and dead, all emotion drained away by the shock of what they had just witnessed. Or perhaps the distance was within her own head. After all, it was more than just one voice that seemed strange. The entire world had turned flat and colorless. Though she lifted her head and tried to blink away her tears, still the familiar shapes of the courtyard seemed to have been reduced to a crude painting, rendered only in shades of white and gray.

"Elsa! We have to go! Now!"

She felt herself being shaken roughly. Strong hands grabbed her shoulders and attempted to pull her to her feet, but she hadn't the strength to stand. She was exhausted. The prolonged use of so much concentrated magic had been enervating enough. Watching in pathetic impotence as her sister had flown out of her life had been one blow too many.

"Every second we wait, Anna gets further and further away. We can't just sit here! I'll… I'll get Sven. I can have him harnessed and ready to go in less than a minute. Then we can go after them. Then we can..."

"How?" Elsa asked weakly. "She was flying, Kristoff. There's no way we could ever keep up with her. No matter how fast Sven runs, he'll never be able to catch up. Besides..." She choked on a sob. "I have to go alone."

The brawny man came around to stand in front of her and, with no regard to propriety, grabbed her and hauled her upright. It was his strength and not her own that kept her from crumpling to the ground again. "You can't be serious! This is Anna we're talking about! I'm going after her, and there's nothing you or anyone else can do to stop me."

"Kristoff..."

"We have to get moving. Right now. So maybe we can't keep up, but we have to try. I mean, she can't sustain that kind of power forever, can she? Maybe… maybe she just did that to escape the castle. Maybe she'll have to set back down again, and then we'll at least have a chance. If we let her get too far ahead, though, we might never find her. Right now, she isn't exactly hiding, but if she goes to ground..."

"It doesn't matter."

His hands tightened painfully upon her shoulders, and his face contorted in pain and anger. "How can you say that? Of course it matters! It's Anna! It's your sister, and..."

At last, feelings surged up inside her again, and they gave her strength. Fiercely, she knocked his arms away. Standing on her own two feet, she glared up at him, her face mirroring his emotions.

"Don't you think I know that? Don't you think I'm scared sick right now? How can you even suggest that Anna doesn't matter to me? She's my family, Kristoff. She means everything to me!"

For a moment, he looked taken aback. Then his eyebrows drew down again, fear for Anna giving him courage before the queen. "But you just said..."

"That woman has no intention of hiding, ever! She wants me to follow her, remember? And when I said it didn't matter, I meant that it makes no difference how far away she travels. I'll find her. I will track her down, no matter what."

The fierce conviction that had found its way into Elsa's voice was enough to give Kristoff pause. "Well," he said at last, "that's… that's more like it. Now I'm not exactly the best tracker in these parts, but I know that we shouldn't allow the trail to grow cold." He immediately winced at the potentially hurtful choice of words, but Elsa didn't even seem to notice.

"We don't need a trail, Kristoff. Wherever she takes Anna, I'll know."

He looked at her then with open skepticism. He appreciated her renewed determination; they couldn't afford to break down in the face of this calamity. But they also couldn't risk losing their heads to dangerous overconfidence. "Look, I understand how close you and Anna can be, but I don't think we ought to rely on some spiritual sibling connection to..."

Elsa shook her head. "No, it's not that. Well, not exactly. It's Olaf."

Kristoff stood up straighter, his doubt giving way to abject confusion. "Olaf? Okay, now I'm completely lost."

"It's a little hard to explain. I've… I've always had trouble using my magic to shape snow into anything except the most basic of shapes. I tried when I was younger, but I could never get it to work. As soon as I'd let go of the magic, the snow would just collapse. It was frustrating.

"I only discovered the secret by accident, and I didn't even realize its significance until years later. You see, at least for me, the trick is to leave a little pocket of magic inside the snow. That seems to be enough to hold it all together. It just also happens to have one other little side effect."

Understanding dawned on Kristoff's face. "That's how you make snow come to life!"

She nodded. "There's a bit of magic inside Marshmallow. There was a bit inside… inside Polla." She glanced mournfully at the trampled patch of snow into which the bear had vanished. Then she pulled herself together and once again looked into the pair of worried brown eyes. "And there's a bit inside Olaf."

All the pieces were now falling into place. "Does that mean…? Can you sense his magic?"

"Yes. Most of the time, I barely notice it. It's sort of like the quietest of murmurs from somewhere down the hall. But if I concentrate on it, I can always find it. That's why I needed Olaf to go with Anna. Well, I also wanted someone to be there for her so she wouldn't be all alone. Mostly, though, I needed a way to follow her no matter where she went."

Kristoff just stared, temporarily agog at this sudden insight. The next instant, his arms were wrapped around Elsa's torso in a hug so tight, he lifted her off her feet. "I could kiss you!" he exclaimed.

"Save it for Anna," she managed to gasp. "I'm sure she'll need it once I bring her back home."

"Once _we_ bring her back home," he corrected, setting her down once again. "I already told you..."

"And I told you, I have to go alone! You saw what she's capable of. There's nothing you can possibly do against her. I… I don't even know if I can stop her. But I'm not about to hand her another hostage."

"Elsa, you might have the power to control ice and snow, but you don't know these mountains the way I do. I know the passes better than almost anyone. I can get us over them faster than you could ever hope to on your own. Besides, we have no idea how far we'll have to travel, so we'll need provisions. Even you need to eat. That means a sled, and you don't exactly have a lot of experience driving one."

"I can't ask you to do that."

"You didn't. I'm volunteering."

"No. No, I won't have you risking your life too. Anna would never forgive me if I let anything happen to you. It's bad enough that she somehow got mixed up in all of this, whatever this is. And if the only way I can free her is by taking her place, then… then she's going to need you to look after her."

Kristoff gaped. "Elsa..."

"This is my fault! I have to be the one to fix this! That woman would never have even come here if it weren't for me!"

"That woman," said a shaky voice from behind Elsa, "is called the Snow Queen."

The argument stopped as the two turned to look at the pair of figures who had detached themselves from the crowd that still lingered in front of the palace. They had quietly crossed the courtyard and now stood a few paces away, faces bloodless with fright. He bowed slightly, though he was shaking so badly, he straightened quickly for fear of losing his balance. She did not even try to curtsey, but merely watched Elsa with a look of misery and guilt upon her face. They appeared to be leaning heavily upon one another for support.

"Kai, Gerda!" Elsa exclaimed in astonishment. "You… you know her?"

"I am afraid so, Your Majesty." The steward's expression conveyed a remorse so deep, it might almost have been a physical pain.

"How? When?" Elsa's initial shock swiftly combined with her fears and anxieties to turn into something even more painful. "And… and you've known my secret for years! If you knew that there was someone like that out there, someone like me, how could you not tell me?"

The two old friends exchanged a glance, their shared embarrassment finally bringing some color back into their cheeks. By unspoken agreement, Gerda provided the answer.

"Your mother and father thought it would be best if..."

Elsa staggered backward a step "My parents knew, too? Does that mean what she said about meeting my mother… was that actually true?"

Gerda blanched, then nodded. "Please don't think too unkindly of them. The Snow Queen has magic beyond what you saw here today. She also has the ability to… well, to make people forget things, you see. Your mother, God rest her soul, didn't even remember their encounters. She only had dreams. Nightmares, really. Even then, once she awoke, all she could hold on to were fragments of a face. She had no idea what they meant. It was only when she finally went to see the trolls that..."

"The trolls?" Anna's abduction had already turned Elsa's world upside-down. This series of revelations, coming so quickly upon the heels of that trauma, was now shaking it so violently that she no longer had the slightest idea what direction up even was anymore. Turning to look at Kristoff, she snapped accusingly, "Did you know about this?"

"No! I swear, this is just as surprising to me as it is to you!"

She wheeled again upon Kai and Gerda. Anna had already had her memories violated once because of a mistake Elsa had made. The thought that it could happen again suddenly kindled within her an urgency that had been almost extinguished by her profound sense of helplessness.

She allowed all of her anger, frustration, and worry to spill into her voice. Together, they resulted in a ring of authority that would have made a great many of her ancestors extremely proud. The sound of it in her own ears was almost enough to make her believe that she actually knew what she was doing.

"You are going to tell me everything you know," she demanded crossly, "but first, we need to take care of a few things. Kai, you need to send someone to fetch the physician immediately. Colonel Holberg needs medical attention. The two who were being frozen should be looked at as well. There shouldn't be any permanent damage, but I don't want to take any chances.

"Kristoff, go get Sven and your sled ready. Grab any equipment you think we might need, and..."

"Wait, does this mean you're going to let me come along with you?"

"We don't have time to argue. Besides, you're right: we'll go faster by sled, and we'll need the provisions. The more I learn about this… this Snow Queen, the less time I want Anna to spend in her clutches. But once we get wherever we're going, I _will_ face her alone. I'm not about to put anyone else's life in danger if I can help it. Do you understand me?"

"Of course, Your Majesty." His sudden use of her formal title did not escape Elsa. Nor did she believe for one second that he would be so willing to follow her orders when the time for the true confrontation actually arrived. Still, that was a debate they could have later. They might not have time for it now, but there would doubtless be far too much time during the long journey that lay ahead.

"Gerda, I need you to see to those provisions. I have no idea how far we'll have to travel or how long it will take, so it will need to be food that can survive a lengthy trip. There shouldn't be any problem keeping it cold, which will help, but we'll need as much as Sven can haul." The head of the kitchens nodded, her eyes going slightly out of focus as she turned her attention inward and began mentally preparing a list of suitable items.

"As soon as you've set all of that in motion, we will meet outside the stables. Then I will expect the full story from both of you, or as much as you can tell me in the time it will take to load the sled. This conspiracy to keep such critical secrets from your queen will be dealt with later. Right now, we need to act, and act swiftly. Are there any questions about what I'm asking of you? No? Then go!"

Gerda, Kai, and Kristoff hurried off in three separate directions. Elsa stood alone for a brief while, staring at the gaping hole in the snow cover that the Snow Queen had left behind when she'd made her escape. Then she turned and, holding her head high, began to walk across the courtyard, away from the stables and the palace. She took great pains not to meet anyone's eye but instead fixed her gaze straight ahead. In this way, she reached her destination without interference. Slipping inside the stave chapel, she quietly pushed the doors closed behind her. She had walked halfway down the aisle toward the apse before she finally came to a halt.

Then, clamping both hands over her mouth, she screamed.

Ice shot outward from beneath her feet, covering the golden floorboards with a sheet of white before it began to climb the pews. Jagged spikes grew out from the benches in every direction, twisting the seats of worship into strange shapes that more closely resembled medieval torture devices. Complicated patterns of frost crawled up the walls. There they met, intertwined, and merged. They covered the tall windows, growing thicker and thicker until the chamber seemed as though it was being illuminated more by the cold light of a waning moon than by the afternoon sun.

Her magic raced up the columns that supported the ceiling and the choir balcony. The crackling noises as these iced over sounded ominously akin to that of splintering wood. When the multiple streams of power collided upon the vaulted apex, the result was like frozen fireworks. Fine streamers launched themselves into the air in spherical blasts, though they did not remain thin for long. The delicate tendrils swiftly bloated, branched, broke, until someone looking up might have thought they were actually gazing down into a thicket of ice-covered thorns.

Elsa's scream only ended when she had exhausted all the air in her lungs. She tried to suck in more, because the wailing within her head still continued and she needed to get it out before it drove her mad. But she choked on the tears that had returned now that she had found a bit of privacy. She coughed, gagged, and nearly wretched. Her shoulders heaved as some part of her fought to regain control. Stumbling forward, she knelt before the altar, though that was perhaps a rather charitable description. Still, even if her legs did choose that moment to give way, the result was the same.

"Anna," she moaned. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please… forgive me." A sob temporarily drowned her words. "I'll… I'll make this right, somehow. No matter what it takes, I will save you, just like you saved me. I won't give up until you're back here, safe and sound again. Because we're family, and family never gives up on each other. Especially since… since it's my fault that you were..."

She buried her face in her hands.

Several minutes of misery ticked by before she rose unsteadily to her feet, wiping at her cheeks. She did not really care if anyone knew that she had been crying. After all, they had already seen her break down in the middle of the courtyard. But she had given herself all the time she could afford to rail against her own failings. Now, the time had come to put tears aside, at least for the moment. She needed to be Queen Elsa again.

She thought of the portrait of her father in the library, the one that captured the moment of his coronation. In it, he held himself with such pride and confidence. She'd drawn inspiration and strength from it on her own coronation day, when she had stood on almost this exact same spot and tried her best to emulate his regal bearing. Of course, her hands had been shaking terribly and she had struggled every second to suppress her urge to turn tail and run.

Somehow, though, no one had noticed. And after Gerda had explained to her everything that her father had been facing when he had taken the throne, she'd begun to wonder if it might not be possible that his hands had trembled every bit as much when they first held the orb and scepter. That was something a painting would never show.

Yet as goes the ruler, so does the kingdom. Her father had taught her that. Small lapses could perhaps be overlooked. In times of crisis, though, the people took their cues from the crown. When she had fled in fear from the Coronation Ball, fear was what she had left Arendelle with as well. She could not afford to do the same again.

When she walked out of this refuge, everyone would look to her. It was her duty to give them what they would need to carry on in her absence: strength, courage, and a belief that everything would turn out right in the end. She hardly felt like she had any of those things herself. Fortunately, she had seen all of them often enough in the faces of her family that she hoped she would be able to at least present her people with reasonable facsimiles.

 _Father,_ she thought. _Mother. Help me. Help me to be brave. Help_ _me_ _be wise. And… and watch over Anna. I'll be there for her as soon as I can. Until then,_ _please... just_ _keep her safe._

No prayer more devout had ever been cast to the heavens from within that chapel.

Squaring her shoulders, Elsa retraced her steps along the aisle. She had to fight for a moment when she went to open the doors, for her ice had sealed them shut. It was brute force that finally cracked them open, because she did not trust her largely feigned composure to extend to the exercise of her magic. Taking a deep breath, she stepped outside.

Immediately, she saw the buzz of activity on the far side of the courtyard. Several members of the household staff were busily loading Kristoff's sled, with his supervision and assistance. Kai and Gerda stood nearby, whispering quietly back and forth. She even recognized Josef, the palace stablemaster, thoroughly triple-checking every strap and buckle on Sven's harness.

Gerda looked up as Elsa drew near and, spotting her approach, called to Kristoff. Giving one last set of instructions for the packing of their supplies, he hurried over to join the small huddle just as Elsa herself arrived.

"How are Fritz and the others?" she asked Kai without preamble.

"Jannika and Henrik are both shaken, but physically, they're fine," he answered. "I'm afraid Colonel Holberg's injuries were rather more severe. Dr. Claussen had him carried up to the palace where he dressed and bound both wounds. Then they laid him in one of the bedrooms so that he might get some rest. I've sent another messenger to inform Mrs. Holberg, so I suspect she'll be arriving shortly.

"The good news is that his life does not appear to be in any danger, thank heavens. Unfortunately, the doctor thinks it likely that he could lose a certain amount of mobility in his right arm. How much, only time will tell."

Elsa nodded gravely. "See to it that he gets whatever medical attention he needs."

Then she pinned Kai with an even sterner glare, one which she turned upon Gerda as well. "Now, I believe you both have a few other things you need to tell me."

The two looked at the queen, then at each other. Neither wanted to be the one to have to start, but start they finally did. For their part, Elsa and Kristoff simply stood there before the stables, listening. They asked few questions, not wanting to delay their departure any more than was absolutely necessary to learn what they were getting themselves into. As a tale unfolded that spanned at least three generations, their amazement steadily grew.

So, too, did their dismay.

• • •

"Let me go!"

Anna strained against her bonds. They might only have been bands of ice, yet they had proven to be anything but fragile. For as little as they yielded under her exertions, they could just as easily have been made of steel. Even so, this had not yet discouraged her from attempting to free herself, or from protesting her abduction.

"I don't know who you think you are, but you don't scare me. I've managed to escape an attack by a hungry pack of wolves. I was once chased down a mountain by an angry snow monster. I even survived like the worst fiance ever!"

"Don't forget being frozen completely solid," Olaf helpfully added, poking his head up over the back of the seat.

"Yeah… Yeah, that too."

Actually, Anna had rather hoped not to bring up that particular incident, but she couldn't exactly blame the little snowman for chiming in. After all, she was doing her best to present a brave and unflappable face to her abductor. She had no idea whether or not the mysterious woman was actually buying into her act, though she had apparently managed to convince at least one member of her select audience. But there was a reason why she would have preferred to keep what might well have been the most terrifying moment of her life a secret from this stranger.

"Frozen solid? Really? My dear, how ever did that happen?"

Yep, that was it.

"It… it was an accident," Anna stammered. Then, in an attempt to reclaim some of her earlier bravado, she added, "It's also none of your business."

"It was your sister, wasn't it? She struck you with her magic. She froze your heart."

Anna flinched, but for once, chose to say nothing.

The Snow Queen clucked her tongue. "You see, this is why I came for Elsa. She obviously does not know how to control her powers. When I learned that Arendelle had been covered with snow in the middle of summer, I was terribly excited, but also quite concerned. After so many years with no sign of any magic, I wondered what might have led to such a sudden and dramatic outburst.

"At first, I thought there must have been some grave threat, one that had finally brought out powers that had lain dormant all that time. I worried that, by waiting for a sign, I had in fact waited too long, and that something dire might have happened to my precious child before I had the chance to come and take her under my wing."

"She is not your child!" Anna protested.

"And you don't have wings," Olaf observed, "which makes this whole flying thing very confusing."

A small smile lifted the corners of the woman's lips, but otherwise, she continued as though there had been no interruption. "As I gathered more information, however, and began to piece together what must have happened, it soon became clear that there had been no such impending danger. I'll admit, I was perplexed. Had it simply taken that long for her magic to manifest? It hardly seemed likely, though at that point, anything might have been possible. This was uncharted territory, after all.

"The only thing of which I was certain was that the power I had left behind had at last revealed itself. All other answers would come in the fullness of time, and they would be far easier to obtain in person than through intermediaries. Unfortunately, I had not considered that I would encounter such willful intractability upon my arrival. I had assumed that Arendelle's new queen would be frightened by the sudden onset of such abilities and would welcome someone who could teach her how to control them. Obviously, that was another mistake on my part."

"Oh, you definitely made a mistake taking on my sister," Anna confirmed, most of the bluster back in her voice. "You're going to be sorry you crossed her. Once Elsa finds me, you'll be in big trouble. And you won't have any civilians around to threaten either, so she won't have any reason to hold back."

"Interesting. Does that mean then that she did not reveal the full extent of her powers during our little confrontation?"

"That's right!" Anna latched on to the question, seeing in it an invitation to intimidate her captor as much as she possibly could. "You have no idea how strong Elsa's magic really is. Like you said, she once froze the entire kingdom. Why, she has to spend most of her time just holding back her powers. They're just that… um… powerful!"

"Really? How very sad for her. Perhaps she is weaker than I allowed myself to believe."

"What are you talking about? I just told you..."

"It is not a sign of strength that she is still denying her gift, child. It is a sign of fear, and that is most certainly a weakness. How much energy must she waste simply restraining her talents all day long, hmm? Besides, she cannot very well make an ally out of something with which she is constantly at war. Her magic will never serve her properly so long as she insists on keeping it forever locked in a cage, only letting it out when it suits her fancy.

"No, if what you say is true, then I have nothing to fear from your sister. She simply cannot hope to defeat another opponent while remaining so very determined to fight herself."

Anna swallowed, alarmed at how quickly her boastful words had been turned against her. Still, she had never been one to be easily deterred.

"Well, Elsa's really smart, too. In fact, she's probably the smartest person I know. You only saw part of what she can do with snow and ice, and she learned that all on her own without anybody to teach her. She doesn't need your help. All she needs is a little time and practice and..."

"Time? Practice? In the short time since she began using her powers, she brought a blizzard down upon your entire kingdom and, apparently, nearly froze you to death. Can you and your people really afford to let Elsa continue to indulge in mere practice if outcomes like those are to be the result? My dear, can't you see that I am trying to do all of you a favor?"

"But it wasn't like that at all! She was… she was just scared. She's better now!"

"Then I shudder to think what she was like before. Fear is why she keeps her magic trapped inside of her as if it was some sort of wild animal. If she truly believes that what she has now is control, then I'm afraid she is nowhere near as intelligent as you believe her to be."

By this point, Anna's temper was beginning to get the better of her. Generally speaking, her easygoing personality meant that she was slow to anger. There were certain things, however, that she simply would not tolerate. At the very top of that list were insults against her sister.

"Do you want to know why you didn't see any sign of Elsa's magic for so long?" she snapped hotly. "It wasn't because she couldn't use it. She chose not to… because of me! She didn't want to hurt me, so she hid her powers and kept them a secret. She did that for thirteen years, just to protect me. If that isn't strength and courage, then I don't know what is!

"But now, I know all about the things she can do. Now everyone knows, so she doesn't need to hide anymore. And now, you've kidnapped me. If Elsa concealed her magic for all those years just to keep me safe, what do you think she's going to do with it to protect me from you?"

"I really have no idea, but I am certainly looking forward to finding out. She has a sense of whimsy that intrigues me. Just look at this one here." The Snow Queen turned half around to consider Olaf, then asked airily, "Why did she make you, I wonder? You don't look as if you'd be any use as a guard or a fighter. Those arms don't exactly lend themselves to much in the way of manual labor. With your stubby legs, you wouldn't even make a terribly effective messenger. Yet here you are! Most curious."

"Oh, I'm definitely curious," Olaf agreed with a nod. "That's probably why Kristoff says I ask too many questions. Ooh, and I just thought of a really good one! Why is the ground getting so close so fast?"

Anna looked around then and was indeed startled by the speed with which they were suddenly dropping. Had her hands been free, she would have grabbed hold of the dash panel before her and held on for dear life. As much as she liked high speeds, they began to lose their appeal once they seemed certain to end in an abrupt and painful stop.

Despite being securely bound to the back of the seat, her inability to brace herself screamed into the most primal corners of her mind. In response, Anna began to fling herself back and forth with renewed vigor, fighting to win free. Meanwhile, the woman beside her remained perfectly poised, sitting comfortably back and watching their descent with detached disinterest.

"Ground!" Anna shouted. "Ground!" She didn't know why she kept repeating the word. ("Ground!") Given how quickly it was approaching, ("Ground!") it was unlikely the sled's driver had somehow missed it. Even so… ("GROUND!")

"Tree! Tree! Tree! Really scared moose!" Olaf had apparently decided they were playing some sort of game, and had entered into it with great gusto. "Tree! Ooh, a reindeer! Maybe he's related to Sven. Hi, Sven's cousin!"

Woodland sped past them on either side now. They were skimming low over a forest road and getting lower still with every passing moment. Anna wanted to squeeze her eyes shut and turn her head away, but somehow, she couldn't quite manage to do either. All she could do was to watch as the snow-covered earth rushed up to meet them.

Only in the last possible instant did she realize that this was, in point of fact, completely and literally true.

The snow beneath them rose up until it brushed the bottom of the icy platform upon which the sled's runners rested. There was a tinkling sound like delicate wind chimes as the ice abraded away, the tiny sand-sized grains mingling with the snow as the little island began to grow thinner and thinner. Even as they wound their way around the road's many twists and turns, their landing continued to be softened by the rolling ramp of snow that accompanied them every inch of the way.

After only a minute or two, the ice had been worn down until it appeared no thicker than a sheet of paper. When that final remnant also disintegrated, it threw a shower of minute crystals into the air. They sparkled, catching the light like diamond dust. The two bears jogged forward a few steps further as the sled shrugged off the very last of its once considerable momentum. Then they stopped, and the bears shook themselves. Lifting their noses, they snuffled at the air, which was heavy with the fresh scents of snow and pine.

"Ground," Anna squeaked.

"Whee!" Olaf exclaimed happily. "I wonder if that's what it would be like to roll all the way down the North Mountain!"

"You know," said the Snow Queen as she indulged in a luxuriant stretch, "if you keep struggling against those bonds like that, you could very well end up injuring yourself."

Anna looked at the other woman mutely, feeling as though her brain was still a kilometer or two behind them and a goodly distance up in the air. It was probably keeping her stomach and several other useful internal organs company.

"Perhaps it would be best if I simply removed them," the Snow Queen continued. "I think we've put enough distance between us and Arendelle by now. Besides, no doubt you will grow terribly uncomfortable if you have to remain bound up like this for the rest of our journey."

Hearing the name of her own kingdom finally jarred Anna somewhat back to her senses. She opened her mouth, ready to blurt out, _If you take these shackles off, then it won't matter how far we've traveled. I will run as far and fast as I can. If I can just get_ _away_ _, then you won't be able to use me_ _as leverage_ _against Elsa. She'll be safe. That's the only thing that matters to me right now._

Of course, how foolish would it be for her to say any of those things out loud? Better once again to just keep quiet. Then, once her arms and legs were no longer restrained, she could take advantage of the first opportunity that presented itself to make a break for it. She wouldn't necessarily have to get that far, either. If she and Olaf could just find a good place to hide, maybe they could outwait this horrible woman. How long would she be willing to spend searching for them? There was no way to know, but even a slim chance was preferable to none at all.

So what she said instead was, "Yes, please."

The Snow Queen leaned over. She extended one graceful finger and, bending low, tapped the fetters around Anna's ankles. They instantly shattered into miniscule fragments. The hand rose, tapped the bindings around the princess's knees, and another shower of icy splinters joined those at her feet. The blonde woman straightened and repeated the same procedure with each of the bands that pinned Anna's right arm – one just above her elbow and the other at her shoulder.

In order to free the left arm, she had to reach all the way across Anna's body. There was an extremely awkward moment when a freckled nose was almost buried in a curtain of pale golden hair. Then, Anna felt the last of her bonds disintegrate. She was free! Part of her wanted to take her chances and bolt for the cover of the nearby trees right there and then. They were too sparse to properly hide her, though. Besides, she rather suspected that she would simply find herself lifted up by a drift of snow and carried straight back into captivity before she even made it to the first trunk. Still, at least she now had a chance. She would simply have to wait until the moment was right and...

As the other woman began to retreat back to her own seat, her pale face passed directly in front of the princess's. Without warning, it stopped, turned, and smiled. Before Anna knew what was happening, she felt a pair of startlingly cold lips pressing against her forehead.

She gasped at the sensation, which somehow didn't seem to stop at her skin. It penetrated much deeper, stabbing through her skull and into her brain. There was a brief but excruciating flash of pain so intense, she was momentarily blinded. Blinking her eyes to try and clear them, she brought the palm of her hand up to press against the spot just above her left eye where the chill still lingered.

"Anna? Anna, are you okay?"

"I'm… I'm fine, Olaf. Just a bit of a headache, that's all." Her vision finally cleared in time to see the reins flick once, lightly signaling to the two draft animals that this short pause in their expedition had now come to an end.

As the boles of the trees fell behind them with increasing speed, Anna continued to massage her forehead with her fingertips. The cold had finally receded, but something still didn't feel quite right. Try as she might, though, she couldn't quite figure out what it was.

"Penny for your thoughts."

Anna blinked at the woman beside her. It was such an amazingly out-of-place sentiment to be delivered from captor to captive that the princess had to replay it in her head several times before she felt certain that she had heard it properly.

"I… I'm not really thinking about anything."

"Ah, but you were just a minute ago. I could see it in your eyes when I released you. Perhaps you could at least tell me what you were thinking about then?"

Anna's eyes narrowed as she cast her mind back, trying to recapture that moment in time. It hadn't been that long ago, after all. So what had been going through her head then? She'd been sitting there, her eyes following along as each band of ice had crumbled to pieces. But what had she been thinking? What had been her reaction to her sudden release?

She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I'm afraid I can't remember."

"I see. Well, you needn't worry about it too much, my dear," the Snow Queen responded with another of her enigmatic smiles. "I'm sure it couldn't have been anything too very important."


	7. Your Friends Close

"We should have told her long ago."

Kai stood beside Gerda atop the castle walls. Both continued to stare up into the mountains, even though all trace of the pursuing sled had long since vanished from sight. So far, they had found it impossible to step away from this spot from which they had watched Kristoff and Elsa disappear on a journey into unknown peril. How could either of them turn to look elsewhere when all their thoughts remained bent in that direction?

A tremor ran through Gerda's body. "You may be right," she admitted as she leaned against her lifelong friend. He wrapped an arm across her shoulders. They both needed all the mutual support that they could provide one another. "It seemed like the right choice at the time. And then all those years slipped by without anything more ever coming of it. I suppose it was just too easy to allow ourselves to believe that nothing ever would.

"Oh, but even if we had… would it possibly have prepared her for this? I'm not sure there was anything that she or anybody else could have done today that would have changed things, at least not for the better. Maybe she would have agreed to go with the Snow Queen, but then we'd be standing here worrying about Princess Anna chasing after her instead. I don't see anything that could have been done to stop this, do you? How could anyone hope to resist that kind of power? After all, you and I know more about the Snow Queen than just about anyone. Did you have any idea that she could… that she could fly like that?"

Kai shook his head. "We all watched tons of snow floating high above Arendelle during the Great Thaw, but I never imagined it could be put to such a use. Even after seeing it with my own eyes, I can barely believe it." His face took on a pained and haunted look. "Then again, it's even more difficult to believe that those two women could have anything in common."

"I think that might be the most terrifying part," Gerda said shakily. "That they are so very much alike, and not just because of their magic, either. They even look similar: their hair, their eyes, their pale skin. It's like looking at what Her Majesty..." She paused, her sense of propriety warring with maternal instincts that had perhaps never been stronger.

"...at what Elsa could have become."

Even she was surprised to discover which side won. But having cleared that hurdle, the rest of Gerda's restraint quickly fell away. Her feelings toward the two sisters, whom she had helped to raise since their very birth, now took over. They began to pour out of her mouth as though a dam had suddenly burst.

"Oh, Kai! What if Elsa does give herself over to free Anna? The only reason she and that… that… that vile creature are any different at all is because Elsa was raised by a family who loved her. Even when she spent all those years locked in her room, she still knew they were there. If she loses that, if that horrible woman takes that away from her forever… Well, look what happened when she thought that Anna had died! She completely lost control. And you remember how bad things were for her after her parents…"

Gerda gasped, and her chest heaved with sudden emotion. Her fingers curled into the fabric of Kai's coat.

"Kai, I promised that I would look after them! It was the last thing I ever said to Idun before… before she left us. But I've failed so miserably! First on Coronation Day and now this. I don't… I don't know what to do. I'm absolutely terrified for both of them. Poor Anna, at the mercy of that cold-hearted fury. Anything might happen to her simply on a whim! Who knows how the Snow Queen's twisted mind works or what she's capable of. After what we just saw here today, I'm not sure that even Elsa can stop that woman. And that assumes she even is a woman! She might just as easily be a devil or a demon or… or… How can Idun's little girl possibly stand up to that? She's always been so timid and fragile."

"Timid, maybe. But fragile? No, I don't think so. She couldn't have gone through everything that her life has thrown at her and yet still be the woman she is today if she weren't made of stronger stuff than even she realizes. I know that her father, at least, believed that. He had great faith in her."

Gerda wasn't quite able to manage a smile, but the anxiety on her face lessened a little. "Her mother, too."

"Well then, in their memory, it is our duty to keep that faith alive. We must trust in Her Majesty. She will find a way, if there is any way to be found."

"But what if…?"

Kai's voice softened, and as he stood there alone with his dearest friend, he also allowed some of the formality of his position to fall away. "You know as well as I that Elsa would move heaven and earth for her sister. Even when she was younger and so frightened that she could barely leave her room, she never hesitated to stand up for Anna. When Marie was injured, she found a way to overcome her fear and help Anna deal with that pain. She rarely questioned her parents' decisions, but she didn't hesitate to let them know how wrong they were that time when Anna had her heart set on leaving the castle.

"She never stopped looking out for her sister. She's not about to let anything change that now."

The grip that Gerda maintained on his coat did not lessen. If anything, it only grew tighter. Kai wished that her voice, when she answered, could have been so strong.

"But who will look out for Elsa?"

He struggled to find a hopeful answer for that. In the past, it had always been Anna, but now she was the one in need of saving. There was Kristoff, of course, but though he doubted neither the man's loyalty nor courage, they would be facing an opponent against whom his particular skills seemed unlikely to be of much use. In the end, he had little hope that his final reply was anywhere near as encouraging as he would have liked it to be.

"The prayers of every soul in Arendelle will go with her."

He and Gerda stared at each other for a time, each trying to gauge how much the other truly believed those words. Then they turned and again looked toward the surrounding mountains.

"Come," Kai said at last. "We've indulged ourselves longer than we probably should. Someone needs to keep the castle and the kingdom in order. It's a grave responsibility that Her Majesty entrusted to us before she left. We had better get started."

Gerda sniffed, blinked furiously a couple of times, but finally nodded. Turning, they made their way together along the rampart, then descended the first set of stairs they came to. They continued to press against each other as they walked, still seeking to draw comfort from the closeness. Kai was at least encouraged that his friend had finally released her death grip upon his jacket. Together, they began to make their way toward the front entrance of the palace.

"Ah, Kai! There you are at last. I've been looking all over for you."

The figure of Vendel Dyrdahl was already striding briskly toward them so that they met near the middle of the courtyard. The steward drew himself up a bit straighter and nodded at the other man. "What is it, Vendel?"

"Everything, I'm afraid." Dyrdahl accompanied his statement with a broad gesture that took in the entire castle and quite possibly more besides. "It's chaos, Kai. Chaos. Everyone wants answers, but there appear to be precious few to give. Little wonder, I suppose. It doesn't help that no one even knows who they ought to be asking, now that Queen Elsa has vanished."

"She didn't vanish," Kai corrected. "She left to rescue her sister."

"Yes, well, it remains terribly unfortunate either way. A kingdom needs its leader more than ever during a crisis such as this. I have the utmost respect for the royal family, of course, but they do seem to be developing a worrying habit of rushing off on ill-planned rescues. Honestly, I do not understand why they feel the need to act so recklessly. This is what the military is for, is it not? The Palace Guard would be far better equipped to coordinate such a mission."

An indignant noise issued from Gerda. Before she could give greater voice to her protest, however, Kai squeezed her shoulder warningly and took it upon himself to respond instead.

"The military would not be of much use in this situation, Vendel. I'm sure you're aware of the difficulties that Weselton's men had when they confronted Her Majesty in the Ice Palace. Now imagine someone with those same powers but far more time to have perfected them. I think you'll agree, it would not go well for the soldiers. If you need more proof, you have only to talk to Colonel Holberg."

"Yes, his injuries are quite troubling. Quite troubling. Still, that is hardly an excuse for Her Majesty to go placing herself in harm's way. If, as you say, this mysterious woman has even greater mastery over her powers, then I fear things might not go so well for our beloved queen either. What will become of Arendelle should its ruler fall?"

"I do not believe that woman has any desire to cause Queen Elsa bodily harm."

"Really? I was made to understand that she fired an arrow directly at her chest!"

"An arrow made of ice. She would have been able to control its flight the entire way. I believe she was only testing her opponent, feeling out her defenses. It seems clear enough that her entire purpose for coming to Arendelle was to take Queen Elsa back with her, in hopes of training her as some sort of apprentice or protege. Why then should she want to injure her, let alone kill her?"

Dyrdahl's eyes narrowed. "I'm afraid I do not find that terribly comforting. Even if what you say is true, then it is still her intent to deprive us of our queen. Nor do we have any reason to believe that she would have any similar compunctions against harming Princess Anna. Where then would that leave us? Besides, I'm not sure we should be quite so ready to accept the words of a violent stranger who forced her way into the castle and attacked our people. I understand that she also claimed to have somehow given Queen Elsa her powers while she was yet in her mother's womb. Well, you'll forgive me if I have trouble giving any credence to such a fantastical notion. Everything she said could easily have been lies concocted to confuse and unsettle Her Majesty."

"They weren't."

The two men looked at Gerda as she finally managed to insert herself into the conversation. There was more than a touch of condescension in Dyrdahl's tone as he asked, "How could you possibly know that?"

"Because Queen Idun knew, as did King Agdar. And they confided the truth to both of us."

It appeared at first that Dyrdahl might laugh, as though he believed he was being told a joke, albeit one in rather poor taste. His expression quickly sobered, however, when confronted with the utter seriousness of the two people standing before him.

"And why, pray tell, would they confide such extraordinary details to you and not to the king's most trusted advisors?"

"Because," Kai answered resignedly, "the two of us had our own encounters with the Snow Queen a very long time ago."

This shocking news rendered Dyrdahl temporarily speechless. He was disciplined enough to not leave his mouth hanging open, but there was a certain blankness behind his eyes as they roved back and forth between Kai and Gerda. Eventually, he blinked. Then, after giving his head a solid shake, he finally managed a reply that came out only slightly strangled.

"The... Snow Queen?"

"That is what she calls herself. Or at least, it's the name that she claims others have given her."

"And the two of you have had dealings with her before?"

"Well, she kidnapped Kai when we were both children," Gerda answered acerbically. "So if you'd like to call that having dealings with her, then yes, I guess we have."

"Kidnapped?" Dyrdahl was clearly struggling by this point. "This… this Snow Queen kidnapped you, and yet you somehow managed to escape? And despite all the tremendous power you assure me she possesses? I'm sorry, but you're simply making no sense. No sense at all."

"It's a long story," Kai acknowledged.

"Ha! Yes, I should think so, and it seems to grow longer by the minute, as tall tales are wont to do."

Gerda began to bristle at the thinly-veiled slight to their honesty. Once again, Kai moved quickly to intervene before she could do anything more to aggravate one of the queen's most senior advisors.

"Vendel, we are quite willing to tell you everything that we know. I'm not sure how much help any of it will actually be in our present situation, but I think it's clear that now is not the time for secrets. We held our silence this long out of respect for the wishes of King Agdar and Queen Idun. Under these circumstances, though, I believe that they would understand. I hope that you will too."

"I hardly think I'm the only one who deserves to hear what you have to say, Kai. Nor, I suspect, will I be the only one that will require some convincing. I am sure you will agree that this must be shared with all of the royal advisors if we are to fully understand the threat we are facing."

Kai hesitated only briefly before nodding his assent. "Of course. We should arrange a meeting as soon as possible, and I will relay the entire story."

"I have already called for just such a meeting," said Dyrdahl. "It seemed only prudent, given the situation we now find ourselves in. We must make plans, after all, both for our immediate response and for long term contingencies should things go badly. If nothing else, we need to choose someone to coordinate our efforts and lead Arendelle in the queen's absence. It's a delicate matter that will require a great deal of thought and deliberation."

This time, Kai simply was not quick enough to beat Gerda to the punch.

"Well then, I'm sure you'll be happy to know that the decision has already been made for you. Before she left, Her Majesty specifically indicated that she wished Kai to take charge while she was away."

Dyrdahl's already ruddy complexion reddened even further as he glowered first at the cook, then the steward. "She did, did she?"

"I'm afraid so, Vendel. Believe me, it's not a responsibility I would have chosen to take on myself, but..."

"Were there other witnesses who heard the queen deliver this proclamation?"

The angry flush that flooded Gerda's cheeks nearly matched Dyrdahl's. "Are you actually implying that we would…?"

"No, no!" Both his posture and his voice relaxed again. He took off his glasses to massage the bridge of his nose, then put them back and wearily shook his head. "No, of course not. Forgive me, I did not mean to be rude. Naturally, your word is more than sufficient for me. Unfortunately, there are some on the council who remain exceedingly scrupulous about observing all the smallest formalities of even the most minor points of order.

"On Coronation Day, when Prince Hans was placed in charge, Princess Anna announced it to a courtyard full of people, so there was no doubting her wishes. We could simply avoid a great deal of unnecessary debate and wasted time if we had similar corroboration of Her Majesty's words."

"Well, if my word is not good enough, then there were any number of kitchen staff and stablehands around helping to load supplies. I'm sure they will tell you the same thing."

"Thank you," Dyrdahl nodded. "And again, I meant no personal offense. After everything that has just happened, I'm afraid I am simply not quite myself at the moment. I had not meant to be so brusque, though I suspect mine will not be the last temper to fray in the coming days. I am frightfully concerned for the royal family and for our kingdom. Until they are properly restored, I've no doubt we will all find ourselves apologizing for foolish things we would otherwise never have allowed ourselves to say."

"You're quite right," admitted Gerda with a heavy sigh, "and I doubt I did much to help matters either. My apologies, Sir. It's only… That is… Well, as you said..." She turned her head away, swallowing hard as one hand came up to cover her mouth. Her thoughts had returned painfully to the two women speeding away from Arendelle and toward heaven only knew what dangers. They might not have been her flesh and blood, but they were the closest she'd ever come to having children of her own. And now they were… they were…

"You needn't worry. I understand completely." Dyrdahl tugged a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her. She accepted it gratefully and began to dab at her eyes. "I would greatly appreciate it," he continued, "if you would consider joining Kai in the telling of everything the two of you know about this Snow Queen. However, if you do not feel up to it..."

She sniffed. "No, I'll come. Of course I will. If there's any chance that what I know might help, then I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't."

"I am pleased to hear you say so. Come then. Most of the advisors should already have gathered. I've sent runners to fetch the two who weren't already here. They ought to be arriving any minute now, and I should like to get down to business as soon as everyone is present."

Stepping to one side, he gestured for Kai and Gerda to lead the way into the palace.

• • •

"The nerve of that man!"

Gerda stormed into the hallway from the room where the impromptu council meeting had been held. Pulling up mere inches shy of the far wall, she spun around and glared back at the door she had just passed through. As Kai hurried to catch up to her, he marveled that the intricately painted wood behind him had not yet burst into flames from the fierceness of her stare.

"Gerda, please do try and keep your voice down," he pleaded in more measured tones.

"Why should I?" she retorted, though her anger was now conveyed more in her intonation than by volume. "The way he acted! The way he treated you in there! I mean, what on earth do you even call that?"

"Politics," Kai answered with a shrug.

She scoffed. "He spent that whole time acting as though he was regent again! Either that or maybe he thinks he's been promoted straight to king. And that was after it was clearly established that Her Majesty left you in charge!"

"Well, Vendel is..."

"Then there were his constant interruptions while we were trying to tell what we know about the Snow Queen! Question after question after question. I think he asked more than all the rest of them put together, and most of it was either pointless or borderline insulting! I felt like I was on trial or something. And I can't see how anybody could be expected to follow what I was trying to say when he kept stopping me after every other sentence. If he didn't want to listen to us in the first place, then why insist we come at all?"

"I suppose a bit of swagger can be soothing to a bruised ego."

"Hmph. I was about ready to give him a few other bruises, the way he was carrying on."

"Gerda, Vendel is a proud man. He is arguably the most successful and well-connected of the royal advisors. His experience with his various business ventures has proven that he is more than capable of leading men. That's part of the reason he was chosen to act as regent in the first place."

"He is aware that we have a proper queen now, isn't he? I'm assuming someone told him."

"Now be fair. We all respond to stress in our own unique ways. Vendel is the sort who needs to take action. He can't bear the idea of just standing back and watching when things start to spiral out of control. So instead, he does what comes naturally to him; he tries to take control himself. At least that way, he feels like he's doing something to improve the situation, even when there's precious little that anyone can actually do."

"That I can understand," Gerda conceded. "But does he have to be so ridiculously churlish about it?"

"He can be a bit blunt at times."

"No. Bluntness and I are old friends. I respect straight talk. That's not what I'm talking about. That man seemed bound and determined to find fault in every insignificant little thing he heard. I mean, didn't we already explain to him that soldiers wouldn't be of much use against the Snow Queen? Yet there he went, harping on that all over again. 'The Palace Guard should have pursued the princess! It's improper for the queen to risk herself in such a reckless manner.'"

"I doubt he was the only one in there thinking that."

"Maybe, but it's painful irony coming from him. Remember, this is the same man who, while he was regent, made it a point to disperse all of the best Guardsmen to remote garrisons throughout the kingdom. He insisted that it made no sense to waste Arendelle's elite in guarding one of its most secure fortifications. 'Better they should defend our borders and protect the trade routes from marauding bandits.'

"Well, we saw how well that worked out, didn't we? You only have to look at how easily the ones who took their places fell into line behind that two-faced excuse for a prince. Granted, things have begun to improve since then, but the Guard still hasn't recovered fully. And now he tries to blame them for not doing more out there today? Half of them aren't much more than raw recruits! I'm sure they have potential, or Colonel Holberg wouldn't have selected them now that he's been given that authority again. But even he needs time to train them properly."

Kai sighed. "Yes, I'll admit, that wasn't one of Vendel's better decisions. He's long seemed to harbor some sort of grudge against the Guard, though I've never been able to work out why. Whatever his reason, it clearly hasn't changed, but his is only one voice now. He can rail against them all he likes, but especially after today, I doubt anyone will consider weakening them again like he did before."

"I should think not. Especially as long as Her Majesty is..."

Gerda's voice faltered. Then she turned away from Kai and stared at the wall instead, doing her best to keep both her eyes and cheeks dry as her indignant anger crumbled.

She felt a hand come to rest upon her shoulder. "It will all be okay, Gerda. Everything will turn out fine."

"How can you know that?" she asked without looking around.

"I suppose I don't," he answered. "But as I said earlier, I have faith. The Royal House of Arendelle has had the strength to endure for centuries. I believe that strength yet lives on. You'll see. They'll all be back before you know it."

"Too late for that."

They stood together in silence a moment longer. Then Kai spoke again. "Look, the rest of the council is still in deliberations about what steps we ought to take next. I need to get back in there and help make sure things don't degenerate into an absolute panic. I promise, I'll come find you again as soon as I can get free and we can talk some more. Do you think you will be able to hold out on your own until then?"

"No." Kai's concern began to mount rapidly, until she finished the thought. "Fortunately, I do have other friends besides you, you know. I'll manage."

Even that faint hint of her usual sharp wit heartened him. "Fair enough. And I have a friend of my own that I think perhaps I should introduce you to this evening. It's a lovely bottle of brandy that I've been saving for a while now, but I do believe its time has come."

He couldn't see Gerda's face, but her ears twitched just enough to let him know he'd finally been able to elicit at least a small smile. "In that case, I look forward to making its acquaintance."

He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before crossing the hallway and opening the door to the chamber beyond. As he stepped through and turned to close it behind him, he saw his friend already beginning to walk down the passage, her head bent in thought and worry.

Kai fervently hoped that her friends were not too very far away.

• • •

Despite the number of people inside the room, it was completely silent when Gerda pushed the door open and entered. Some of the occupants seemed to stare at her as she slowly made her way across the floor. Others appeared to whisper amongst themselves, while some simply acted as if they did not even notice her. Gerda ignored them all. She'd come here with a singular purpose in mind, and nothing else was of much interest to her just then.

She came to a halt a mere pace or two from the side wall. Only then did she lift her eyes from where they had been tracing the grains in the polished wood beneath her feet. With a painful tightness in her throat, she gazed upon two of her dearest friends.

Elsa had decreed that the official painting of her coronation would hang in the portrait gallery. She had said that she was too often in the library to want to have to look at it there all the time, and she felt it was somehow immodest to display it in one of the passages where staff and guests would have to look at it every single day.

She'd never come right out and admitted it, but Gerda was fairly certain that Elsa was actually rather embarrassed by the picture. Maybe it was too much of a reminder how frightened she had been that day, or of everything that had gone wrong so shortly thereafter. Maybe she felt like she had been made to look too regal, considering that even now she sometimes still struggled to feel like she was qualified to lead the entire kingdom.

Perhaps it too readily lent itself to comparisons with her father. After all, like his portrait, it also depicted her standing at the front of the chapel facing the assembled dignitaries and nobles. It wasn't nearly as large as the one of King Agdar that hung in the library, however. Elsa had insisted that it be at least a little more restrained.

Privately, Gerda suspected that the whole thing would have been quietly relocated to the attic as soon as it had been finished – rather than hanging here beside Joan of Arc – but for the fact that Queen Elsa was not the only one in the picture.

Off to the right and a single step behind her sister stood Princess Anna. Her happy smile somehow added warmth to the entire scene, even to Elsa's tightly controlled features. The artist had carefully composed the image to include her without drawing the focus away from the kingdom's newly crowned ruler. At the same time, he'd framed the piece in such a way that it would have seemed incomplete without both women in the picture.

Much as the palace seemed incomplete now that neither of them were there.

Gerda self-consciously cleared her throat before she began to speak "Um, I've never actually done this before. Not that it requires all that much practice, I guess. I just… I'm not quite sure what to say.

"I almost went to talk to your parents, but for some reason, I ended up here instead. I suppose it makes sense. You're the ones I'm worried about, after all. And besides, it doesn't seem likely that anybody will be able to get you two girls out of this mess now except the two of you yourselves. Well, hopefully you'll get some help from your friends, too. Or should I just call them family at this point? Either way, I know they'll help if they can.

"I just wish I could have done – could still do – something more. After all, in my younger days, I ran off after the Snow Queen to save someone that I cared about, though I had no idea what I was getting myself into back then. I would have gone with you this time, but I'd have only slowed you down. Oh, but I should have paid better attention on the trip home all those years ago! Then I could at least have given you better directions than, 'Somewhere in Lapland.' That's hardly useful at all.

"These days, I'm afraid I'm not good for much besides making a decent meal. But I'll make you two a deal. You just get back here safely, right? Then I'll make you both the finest meal you've ever had. All your favorites. And for dessert, all the chocolate and krumkake you can eat. A week of meals, actually, all just like that. A whole month. Whatever it takes. Just… just please. Come back to us. I already lost your mother and your father. I couldn't stand it if… if..."

Stillness once again settled upon the gallery. Gerda's lip trembled, but she made no sound and little other movement as the tears rolled steadily down her cheeks. Though the faces of Princess Anna and Queen Elsa became steadily blurrier, she made no effort to dry her eyes. These tears were all that she could give to them at the moment, along with her prayers. She concentrated upon their likenesses, as if anything she could give to them would somehow be channeled across the vast distances to their real world counterparts. Any strength or courage she might still possess, she would gladly surrender to their cause. Heaven knew they would need it more than she possibly could.

"Gerda?"

She nearly jumped out of her skin at the quiet voice beside her. Hurriedly scrubbing at her face with the borrowed kerchief she still clutched in her hand, she tried to focus, to make out who it was that had startled her so.

"Karina? What… what are you doing here?"

"Looking for you." The younger cook answered as though this should have been obvious.

"What time is it?" Gerda wondered. "Time to be preparing dinner, I suppose. Probably past time, actually. Forgive me. I've neglected my duties, though perhaps it couldn't be helped. Either way, what's done is done, or not done, or… Well, what do you need?"

Karina reached out and laid a hand upon Gerda's arm. "You needn't worry about dinner tonight. It's being taken care of, I've seen to that. I wasn't looking for you because we needed anything. I wanted to find you to see what _you_ needed. Everyone knows how close you've always been to the royal family, and..."

Suddenly, Karina found herself enveloped in the other woman's embrace. Gerda's emotions burst forth, now beyond all control. Silent weeping turned into a pained wail as she clung tightly to the warmth of another human being. Karina held her, saying nothing for she could find no words that seemed adequate. Some problems could not be talked away.

Gerda was still trembling piteously when Karina maneuvered them both to a seat on a nearby settee. Tugging the small square of cloth from the older woman's unresisting fingers, Karina dabbed delicately at her friend's damp cheeks, all while keeping one arm wrapped companionably around her.

"Thank… thank you," Gerda finally hiccuped as she slowly brought herself back under control.

"You're welcome. Now, is there anything else I can do for you? You only need to ask. I can help you back to your room, if you'd rather be alone for a while. Or I can..."

Gerda was shaking her head. "No. Not alone. I feel too alone already. But if you wouldn't mind helping me down to the kitchens? Right now, what I need more than anything is to feel useful. I might not be to do very much in this state, but anything is better than nothing. Besides, that's where I belong."

"Of course." Karina smiled, then stood and helped Gerda get shakily to her feet. They paused for one last long look at the painting of the two royal sisters. Then, arm-in-arm, they turned and walked out into the passage.

They left behind them the silence, the order, the never-changing stillness of captured moments frozen in time. Instead, they turned toward the heat, the noise, and the mess that always accompanied dinner preparations. Even on the best of days, it was barely controlled chaos. Despite finely laid plans and the most closely followed recipes, surprises were inevitable.

But that was life. And just as the kitchen staff refused to let the unexpected ruin a meal, so too would they rally together to see one of their own through any hardship no matter how bitter. In the days ahead, they would need to support one another as they only had done a few other times in their years together. Yet both Gerda and Karina had no doubt that was exactly what they would do.

After all, that's what friends were for.


	8. And Your Enemies Closer

With each slow and careful step, his boots sank deep into the white powder. The fog of his breath curled up and away, a thin smoke escaping from the fire that burned within his chest. His sharp eyes flashed as though lit from within by the same flames that warmed his body, heated his blood, and drove his limbs ever onward through the drifted snow.

Beneath furrowed brows, those same eyes methodically swept back and forth, probing between the boles of the trees for any sign of movement. He had ventured out that morning alone, and yet for some time now, he'd been plagued with the unshakeable sensation that a pursuit was afoot. His mind insisted that some invisible quarry was stubbornly evading him, managing to remain always just out of his sight. His pride at his own tracking skills coupled with his respect for such elusive cunning pushed him forward, leaving him unwilling to turn back to his camp just yet. The ancient instincts of the hunter refused to be denied.

The hairs on the back of his neck, however, were doing all they possibly could to change his mind. While they had been among the first to signal the onset of the chase, they remained stubbornly unconvinced as to who was playing which role in this particular hunt.

As a concession to these nagging feelings, he paused yet again, turning through a full circle to examine not just the invisible road that lay ahead but also the tracks that so clearly marked the path behind. It was not the first time he had done this, even though the results had been much the same every time he had made the effort. The only sign of life in either direction appeared to be the trees themselves. Yet despite the cold, the air in the woods was surprisingly still. There was no wind to buffet the branches, no occasional gust to dislodge a spray of flakes into the air. The result was that even the trees seemed as dead as stone.

Another man might have considered that it was this utter lack of movement that had caused his mind to invent some unseen creature to accompany him through the woods, but such a man would have possessed considerably more imagination and significantly less mental discipline. Flights of fancy were as foreign to this lone traveler as he was to the forest beneath whose snow-covered canopy he now walked.

He resumed his steady progress, each heightened sense on alert for the slightest telltale: tracks in the snow, claw marks upon a tree trunk, a rustle or crunch, the musky odor of wet hide, anything. Since he did not know what exactly he was searching for, he had to be aware of every seemingly insignificant detail. He was fortunate that such obsessiveness came easily to him.

Even so, he found no external signs to support his internal disquiet, which was itself even more disquieting. True, the snowfall was fresh – extremely so, in point of fact. The storm had arrived with a sudden violence that had blanketed the ground in mere minutes. By the time it had blown itself out, the snow it had left behind was close to topping his tall boots. In places, drifts had formed that came nearly to his waist.

Still, he would have expected some sign that at least a few animals had dared to venture out of their hidden dens and warrens. He had been slogging through the trees for more than an hour now since the squall had abated, yet he had not seen even so much as the three-toed prints of a small bird lighting briefly upon the ground. It was uncanny, unnatural, and unnerving.

Then he came upon the stream, and his skin broke out in gooseflesh that had nothing to do with the cold.

Ice. And not just a thin coating over the top or scattered patches along the shore. Either of those would have been odd enough, for no matter how strong that sudden blizzard might have been, it should not have been able to freeze running water so quickly. Yet there was no sound of gurgling beneath the surface nor any sign of movement.

Reaching up, he snapped off a sturdy branch from an overhanging tree. Then he walked forward and thrust it downward toward the iced-over brook. The ice did not crack, did not yield. In fact, its surface was barely marked at all. Everything seemed to indicate that the small watercourse was frozen solid all the way down to the bed below. His mind could not even begin to offer up an explanation for how such a thing could have happened so quickly. It was a mystery, and he hated mysteries. He preferred dealing in answers, facts, and cold hard truths that he could hold in his hands. What lay before him was certainly cold and hard, but that was hardly a consolation.

Lifting his eyes, he again surveyed his surroundings and contemplated what his next move ought to be. It would be simple enough to cross to the other bank and continue on in the direction he had been traveling, but there was little reason to think that he would find anything more beneath those trees than he had in his trek through the forest so far.

But this stream might be another thing entirely. No matter the environment, animals always come to water. True, it was frozen now, but might the local wildlife be just as surprised by this as he was? If so, then this could at least provide an opportunity for him to find a set of tracks other than his own that he could follow. If the run grew deeper and broader further downstream, there was even a chance that water might still be flowing free. Perhaps then he might be lucky enough to sneak up on some unknowing creature that had paused to take an incautious drink.

On the other hand, if what he really wanted to find were answers, common sense said he should head in the other direction. Regardless of whether a river dries up or floods its banks, the cause nearly always lies upstream. He saw no reason to presume that the same would not hold true for this case as well. Then again, would he be able to recognize the reason if he saw it? What might such a thing even look like? He could easily walk for another hour until the stream had dwindled to a mere trickle and yet not be one step closer to unraveling the mystery.

He was still standing there, weighing his options, when he suddenly became aware of a flicker of movement at the very edge of his sight. As eager as he had been for any such sign of life in these woods, he forced himself not to whip his head around. He turned slowly instead, not wanting to startle away whatever it might be, if it was anything at all. What he saw made his eyes grow momentarily large in surprise. A second later, though, and they had narrowed down into an expression of savage cunning, his teeth bared in a predatory grin.

The bear was moving between the trees with what appeared to be purposeful intent, and if not for those very trees, it might well have been almost invisible. After all, its coat blended almost perfectly into the snow that surrounded it. Apart from the small black dots of its eyes and nose, the only failure in its camouflage came when its bright body passed the dark pillar of a tree trunk. It was likely just such an occlusion that had drawn his attention to it in the first place.

Keeping his movements slow and smooth, the man reached back and unslung his weapon off his shoulder. Some part of him wondered what on earth a polar bear was doing at this latitude – which, though quite northerly, was still a long way from the animal's typical arctic home – but the practical wisdom of a seasoned hunter nonetheless moved him to make best advantage of what might well be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Now, with the choice between answers and such a magnificent prize made so very tangible… well, he'd always considered curiosity to be highly overrated anyway.

He nestled the stock against his shoulder, then sighted in on the massive white bear. There still was not even a breath of wind amid the trees, which was a good thing considering the distances involved. He would not need to compensate for either headwind or crosswind. He only needed to lead his prey ever so slightly to account for the delay from the pulling of the trigger to the moment of impact.

He did not have to steady himself. Ample experience meant that his heart rate had barely increased, and his breathing had actually slowed when he'd begun to take aim. His thickly muscled arms did not waver in the slightest. He inhaled, not deeply but deliberately. Then he exhaled, emptying his lungs and letting his chest relax. Any unnecessary tension that might cause the shot to go astray flowed out right along with the air.

He fired.

And the bear disappeared.

So many things happened in that next instant that any attempt to put them in proper sequence would have been impossible. Before he could do more than blink at the sheer wall of what appeared to be ice that had suddenly materialized between him and his target, a deafening roar split the still air beside his ear. At the same time, he felt something immensely heavy slam into him from behind, sending him tumbling across the snow covered ground until he fetched up against a thick tree trunk with an agonizing crack.

Instinct took control again, and he was on his feet almost immediately, trying not to grimace at the pain. His left arm hung useless at his side, the shoulder having been dislocated from its socket by the forceful impact. He spotted his weapon a couple meters away. It had been torn from his hands when he had been flung aside like a rag doll, but he did not dare make a move to retrieve it now. Instead, he drew a long-bladed hunting knife from a sheath at his back, dropping into a crouch and staring at the adversary who had managed to accomplish the nearly unprecedented feat of sneaking up behind him and catching him unawares. To his surprise, however, there turned out to be two.

The first was a second bear, at least as big as the one that had originally caught his eye. Its muzzle was pulled back in a snarl that showed off its teeth to impressive effect. Huffing and snorting noises came from deep within its throat, and its black eyes held him with the same intensity that all hunters reserved for their prey. Its head was lowered and its front paws dug at the snow. The meaning was clear enough: the animal was readying itself to run him down.

The fact that this had not already happened seemed to be entirely due to the second figure, who stood now on the spot from which he had been so violently evicted. One hand rested upon the back of the great bear's neck in what appeared to be an almost casual manner, and yet it seemed as effective as a leash. It looked like the sort of gesture that an accomplished breeder would use to stay a well-trained hound that was otherwise eager to take off in pursuit of an errant fox. The withdrawal of that hand would be as clear a signal as any verbal command to attack.

That the fingers were so delicate hardly seemed to matter. There was no mistaking the confident power in them, and in the rest of the body to which they were attached. The stranger was swathed in a pale blue cloak, the edges of which were trimmed with fur even whiter than that of the bear beside it. Though the voluminous bulk of the fabric concealed much of the shape within, it could not hide the regal – even haughty – posture that held both shoulders and chin high and proud.

The other hand gripped a clear, crystalline rod as long as any walking stick. Long hair, whose faint golden color suggested that of weak winter sunlight, framed an exceedingly pale face. But the eyes, a piercing blue that could be seen to glint with cold fire even at this distance, held the wounded man with a ferocity every bit equal to the bear's.

"How dare you attack my friend."

The woman did not shout. She did not need volume to intimidate, for her voice was colder even than the frozen stream. Never before had the lone hunter appreciated quite so deeply the phrase, "my blood ran cold." He tried and failed to suppress a shiver, which he then attempted to cover with sharp words of his own.

"Friend? I started hunting when I was just a boy. I've tracked every sort of game that roams these lands, including bear. Never once have I known one to be friendly. Vicious, pitiless, and cruel… but not friendly."

He would not have thought it possible, but the look of disdain on the woman's face deepened even further. "I should think not. What sort of simpleton would you have to be to attempt to befriend a man who was trying to kill you? Though if you're so dim-witted you can't understand that, then perhaps I have answered my own question."

The insult rankled him deeply, for he had far more experience casting aspersions than in receiving them. "You will not speak to me in that manner!" he growled.

She arched an eyebrow. "Only if I choose not to speak to you at all. Granted, given the singular lack of intelligence you have displayed thus far, such a prospect grows steadily more appealing with every passing moment."

The snort that burst from the bear's nostrils almost sounded amused. The man glanced at the imposing creature, then adjusted the grip on his knife. His eyes darted once again to the more powerful weapon that lay half-buried in the snow well beyond his reach. He would have felt far more comfortable if he'd still been holding that in his hands and not this stunted blade. Then again, even it hadn't proven all that effective earlier, had it?

His eyes narrowed as he resisted the urge to look back at the mysterious wall of ice that had inexplicably blocked his shot. It could not possibly be a coincidence, could it, that this woman and her… her pet had appeared a mere moment later? But then, how could the two possibly be related?

"Who are you?" he asked brusquely.

The woman sighed. "It appears I shall need to add gallantry to the ever growing list of things you so woefully lack. Demanding a lady's name before so much as offering your own? No wonder you have such trouble making friends."

Ignoring her gibes, he jerked his head back over his shoulder, attempting to indicate the wall behind him. "Did you have something to do with that?" He didn't dare turn away from her lest she take advantage of such an opportunity to unleash the bear in another attack.

The small smile that appeared upon her face was utterly devoid of warmth, crafted instead almost entirely out of condescension. "Perhaps."

"How?"

"Oh, rather like this."

A single finger twitched on the hand that held the staff, and the weapon he had been coveting a second earlier rose into the air, balancing impossibly upon the tip of a spicule of ice. He watched, dumbfounded, as it rotated lazily atop the narrow point.

It took a moment for him to realize that there was a strange patina spreading across its surface. At first, it simply looked like a coating of frost, but this grew and thickened until it soon formed a solid but perfectly clear crystalline cocoon.

A creaking and a groaning began, faint and muffled at first but growing steadily louder. Then, with the scream of rending metal and the explosive crack of splintering wood, both the weapon and the ice that had encased it shattered into hundreds of useless pieces.

"Sorcery!" he exclaimed, his eyes snapping back to the beautiful but coldly distant face. "Witch!"

She shrugged dismissively. "I have been called that before, along with many other titles both fouler and fairer. None of them can hurt me, any more than that silly little toothpick you are holding."

"I have killed men with less than this."

"In case you have not noticed, it is not a man who stands before you."

"I have no patience for word games," he scoffed, "nor for those who hide behind them. Words are the refuge of the weak."

"And bluster is the sanctuary of the weak-minded. I know your kind all too well. So convinced that might makes right, which is terribly convenient when you happen to be the strongest one around. But isn't it odd how that opinion can change so swiftly when somebody eventually appears who is actually more powerful than you?"

He sneered. "I'll let you know should I ever meet such a person."

There was a sadness in the way she shook her head. "I am forever hoping that one day, I shall venture out into the world to find that it has altered for the better. Yet for all the change I have witnessed in my lifetime, men remain the same. Selfish. Arrogant. Brutish. And yet still they play at being civilized.

"You are all children, pretending to be grown up. No, you are worse, for children at least understand that playtime must end. They do not know who this person is that they will someday need to become, but they aspire to be something more, something better. You, meanwhile, believe that you have somehow reached the pinnacle of creation. It is a folly that could only come from the minds of men."

"Oh, do spare me your contempt," he replied. "If mankind hasn't changed, it's only because the world we live in has not changed either.

"I know your sort as well. Always so quick to complain that man puts himself above nature, while at the same time vilifying us for violence and greed. You call us savages, and yet we are only following the laws that nature herself set down eons ago. The strong hunt the weak, taking whatever they can get for themselves whenever the opportunity arises. They always have, and they always will. Predator and prey, both doing what they must to survive. Just ask one of your bear friends."

Her smile returned, only this time it brought with it the impression that she was enjoying some private joke to which he had not yet been made privy. "Perhaps you would like to ask them yourself?"

That was when he felt the hot, rank breath against his ear.

He moved without thinking, years of training automatically responding to a threat by spinning away from the unseen presence. At the same time, he extended his knife hand to its fullest extent, slashing the blade through a great sweeping arc as he turned. He felt the catch, the slight change in resistance as steel passed from air through flesh and back again.

Two blood curdling roars erupted simultaneously, one from the creature he had just cut and the other from its partner now mostly behind him. His spin had taken him some distance from the tree that had previously been at his back, so he attempted to retreat, to slip through a gap and put some distance between himself and the two enraged animals. Even as he did so, he realized that there was no way he could possibly hope to fight off both of them with a single hunting knife and only one functioning arm. He prepared himself for the worst.

His head snapped backward as something cold and incredibly solid connected with his jaw, and he staggered. Dazed by the blow, he shook his head in an attempt to clear it. He did not have time to tell whether or not this was particularly successful, for he suddenly felt a searing agony stab through his right hand. His blade fell from his fingers into the snow and he looked down, expecting to see a snarling white maw clamped around his arm. Instead, shards of ice like miniature daggers protruded from his sleeve and glove, red rings already welling up around the base of each.

Doing his best to ignore the pain, he began to bend down, hoping to retrieve the knife despite his injury. Then his eyes bulged and his gorge rose as a pillar of snow shot upward out of the ground and drove into his abdomen. It felt like he had been kicked by a horse as he doubled over, struggling to draw in the breath that had been so forcefully expelled from his lungs. The pain was so great that he couldn't help but squeeze his eyes shut against it for a moment.

The sudden cold pressure against his left eyelid would have made him recoil, except that he found that he could not. Something had risen up behind him, perfectly conforming to the curve of his spine, the bend of his neck, the back of his head. The option of retreat had also now been taken away from him.

"I shouldn't move too much if I were you," came the woman's voice, and now there was no mistaking the fury that was barely being held in check behind it. "Then again, I am not you, and personally, I should very much like to kill you right now. So perhaps losing an eye ought to be the least of your worries. Who knows? It might actually help you to see more clearly."

There was a pause, then a short whimper in an abnormally deep register. When the woman spoke again, the words came to him from an entirely different location than they had a moment ago.

"You are an exceedingly lucky man," she said. "First, I just happened to be near enough at hand to keep you from shooting my friend earlier. Now, your second attempt to harm her managed to produce little more than a scratch. Had the damage been any more severe, then at the very least I should have plucked your eye right out of its socket and fed it to you.

"As it is, I think I shall let you keep both your sight and your life. Even so, a price must still be paid for your arrogant transgressions. And since you have already demonstrated an impressive resilience to physical pain, perhaps something a bit more subtle would prove more effective anyway."

A second or two later, he felt the pressure vanish from his eyelid, though whatever was holding him in place remained. Cautiously, he opened his eyes… and found a pair of startlingly blue ones staring back at him from an uncomfortably close distance.

"I am going to take something from you," she said in a voice so soft it was practically a whisper. "Something very important.

"You see, control over ice and snow is not the only magic I possess. I also can, if I so choose, make people forget things. Small things, big things, every thing. Normally after an encounter such as this, I would see to it that no memory of me remained in your mind whatsoever. I suppose you could say that I enjoy my privacy, and it is much easier to be left alone when no one knows that you exist.

"You, however... I have decided that I want you to remember me, because I also want you to remember the cost of your actions. I want this conversation to echo in your mind until the very end of your days. I want you to know without question that something you once possessed is no longer yours. You obviously won't remember what it was that you have lost, but you will know that it is gone and that you will never get it back again. Let that knowledge be your punishment."

He tried to bolt forward, to attack her, but he found that his motion was now blocked in that direction as well. Glancing down, he saw that a thick mound of snow had piled up so that it encased his entire body, pinning his arms to his sides in the process. It was like being buried in a snowdrift up to his neck. In time, he thought he would be able to dig his way out, but…

He felt something brush lightly against his forehead, and his eyes darted back up just in time to see the woman's lips withdrawing. "It is done," she said simply. Then she straightened, turned, and began to walk away from him.

"No, it is not!" he bellowed to her retreating back. "I will find you. No matter how long it takes, I will track you down. I will hunt you with every resource at my disposal. This I swear. And once I have found you, I will end you. You have no idea what you have done here today. You have no idea who you are dealing with!"

She paused then, standing in the middle of the woods, flanked by the two white bears. Slowly, she looked back over her shoulder.

"Neither do you."

Raging, bellowing with fury, tossing his body back and forth to try and loosen the grip of his wintry prison, he watched as the pale woman and her two companions strolled casually off through the trees. The bears' tracks filled in almost instantly behind them. She left none at all. By the time he got free, there would be no trace he could possibly use to track them.

He fought and he struggled, his powerful muscles slowly weakening the snow. If he could only liberate his one good arm, he stood a good chance of being able to pull himself free. Until then, though, he could feel his mind racing, searching through every corner of his memory, trying to find a gap, looking for something that was no longer there, wondering what it was she had taken from him...

And imagining the sweet revenge he would exact upon her once he had her properly at his mercy.

• • •

His eyes opened slowly and stared into the night. He had awoken from the same dream so very many times over the years now that it no longer ended with him sitting bolt upright in bed, howling at the top of his lungs. It was as though he and the memory had formed a sort of uneasy truce. He allowed it to come and visit him whenever it wished (he could hardly stop it). In return, it seemed content to merely mock him now. Perhaps it had simply grown as bored of the recurring torments as he had.

Pushing himself upright, he sat for a while on the edge of his cot. The chill night air seeped in through the flap of his tent, doing its best to find its way beneath the layers of warm clothing he wore as protection against winter's cold. Right then, though, he did not mind. He found the temperature bracing, and it helped banish any lingering vestiges of fatigue from his mind and body. Sleep no longer held much interest for him on this night. Besides, it was nearly over anyway.

He allowed himself a brief period of silent contemplation, then stood and walked out of his temporary shelter. Had he not known better, he might have thought that he'd stumbled right back into his dream, for his surroundings so closely matched those in which he had found himself on that day long ago. However, though the branches of these tall trees also hung heavy with snow, they belonged to an entirely different forest. The ground beneath his feet was far steeper here as he made his way up the slope in the dim pre-dawn light.

Several minutes later, he walked out from beneath the trees. Scrabbling over the stony ground, he eventually climbed up onto a narrow shelf, then turned to look back in the direction from whence he had come and surveyed the expansive scene that spread out before him.

Immediately beneath the rocky outcrop, descending from the tree line all the way down to the valley below, the evergreen forest covered the lower half of the mountain slope with a mottled mixture of white snow and dark green needles. Other peaks rose to either side and extended off into the distance, walling in the waters of a half-frozen fjord that nestled between them. Though they were hidden in deep shadow at the moment, he knew that a small clutch of buildings also lurked down there, a secluded little village of hardy folk who prided themselves on their self-sufficiency. Not that they had much choice in the matter. Given how remote their little outpost was, visitors and traders were a rare sight indeed. Few people even knew that the wholly insignificant town even existed.

He knew, though. Just as he knew the name of every one of the surrounding mountains, the complicated series of waterways that you needed to navigate if you wished to travel here by boat, the nearest population center that most people would be willing to consider civilization. He knew this land well. He'd simply not had much occasion to view it from this particular vantage point before.

After all, this mountain range marked the border of Fjellkuling territory, which he had been crossing for the last several weeks. From where he now stood, that country was behind him and an entirely different one lay ahead. Once he descended this slope, he would at last have indisputably returned to the land of his birth. A score of years and more had passed since he'd last felt the soil of his native land beneath his feet. This was a homecoming long overdue, but the time had finally arrived. Recent events had made it imperative that he return. Fortunately, he had been preparing for this moment every single day for the last twenty years. He was more than ready.

As he reflected upon all the cruel twists of fate that had led him to this point in his life, the blue-tinged snowcaps that surrounded him suddenly lit up golden. In the east, the rising sun crested the distant horizon, and now its slanting rays began to repaint the wintry canvas in its own image.

He remained standing in the exact same spot, putting to use the hard-earned lessons in patience that life had taught him. Eventually, he felt the sunlight fall upon his face, bringing with it a bit of the warmth that the night had temporarily stolen away. He squinted, but did not close his eyes. He had waited too long to see this sight again. Now that he was getting his wish at last, he would not look away.

"My Lord!"

"Your Majesty," he growled low in his throat. Oh, how he longed for the day when he would once again be afforded the respect that was his due. It galled him every single time he was addressed by some lesser title. Still, this was neither the time nor place to press the matter. Both would come soon enough.

"Pardon me, General. Did you say something?"

Well, as titles went, rank was at least an improvement. "No, Major. Just thinking aloud. I presume you have something to report?"

"Yes, sir!" Climbing up onto the stone platform beside his superior officer, he snapped to attention.

"Sir, we've just received word from our spies in the capital."

"Scouts, Major. Scouts. Spies are sent to do the dirty work by people who are unwilling to do it themselves. I hope you do not believe for one moment that I am such a man."

"No, sir! Forgive me, sir. Our... scouts have observed some rather unusual activity that they felt you should be made aware of. It appears that the queen has departed, and rather precipitously."

The taller man raised an eyebrow, mildly intrigued. "Indeed?"

"Yes sir." As he glanced down at the sheet of paper he had brought with him, the staff officer allowed his expression to betray a degree of concern. "Unfortunately, the reports appear to be somewhat confused on certain key points."

"That is troubling, Major. Accurate intelligence is vital to a successful campaign."

"Without question, and I have sent messengers back to try to clarify matters. All of the dispatches seem to agree that she has left, and in great haste. Most say that she left by sledge and in the company of a Sami ice harvester. However, there is this one..." His voice trailed off uncertainly, and his face took on an even more troubled countenance.

"What is it, Major?" The words rang with impatience.

"Well, sir… That is… Well, there really isn't any sensible way to put it. It also says that she departed by sled, but claims she was accompanied by what appeared to be her sister and… Sir, it claims the two of them were flying."

"Flying." The deadpan response ably conveyed his disbelief at such a preposterous assertion.

"Yes, sir." Notes were consulted yet again. "On a platform of what, at least according to this particular scout, appeared to be ice."

"Ha!" The sharp bark of laughter nearly made the adjutant jump. "Yes, why not? We shouldn't have expected anything less from the woman who buried her entire kingdom in snow, after all. No one within the circles of power on the continent has been able to talk about anything else these last few months. It's all been about the Snow Queen of Arendelle, hasn't it?"

"I wouldn't know, sir." The major purged all emotion from his face, reverting to the blank look of studied attentiveness common to military men the world over when their superiors began talking past them.

"Hmm." The general stared off into the distance. Then he began to chuckle, a low rumble that rolled out of him like hot lava from a volcano.

"This is excellent news, Major. It means that the single greatest wild card is temporarily out of play."

"My Lord?"

This time, the use of the all-too-lowly title barely even bothered him. At last, circumstances were conspiring in his favor. "Nobody really knows the full extent of the witch's abilities, you see. She has demonstrated that she is indeed quite powerful, but all power has its limits. I had planned to spend far longer performing reconnaissance, relying on our scouts to question and observe, and hopefully to help discover exactly what those limits might be.

"But now she has gone, traveling by sled and with great haste. That would suggest that whatever journey she is undertaking, she expects it to be rather lengthy."

The officer again examined his notes. "Several of the scouts do say that the Sami's sled appeared to be heavily laden with supplies."

"You see? That means we have been given an unexpected opportunity. Not wholly unexpected, of course. I have attempted to give thought to all possible contingencies. I simply did not believe we should be so fortunate as to be able to take advantage of this particular one."

"But sir, the castle is still guarded by..."

"By soldiers, Major. Mere men. Its single most dangerous defender has gone. I now know exactly how to deal with what is left."

"Of course, sir." There was no indication of doubt in the younger man's voice. Such a thing was ill-advised in the general's presence to begin with. Even more importantly, he knew that this was not a man given to idle boasts and brag. Had he instead said that he was planning to single-handedly dig a tunnel straight through the heart of the mountain upon which they now stood, the only question to be asked would have been, _With or without a shovel, sir?_

The orders came swiftly now. "Alert the men. Have them begin preparations to break camp. We move out come nightfall. It will be easier to conceal our movements beneath the cover of darkness. Even in this remote area, I see no reason to take unnecessary chances. Things will become more difficult if those left in the castle are warned of our approach. It is, after all, far easier to take out an adversary that does not yet even know they are at war.

"Send scouts out immediately to reconnoiter the road ahead. Best to know what obstacles await us before we reach them. We must remember that we are in enemy territory now. Peace may have made this land soft, but there is no surer path to failure than by underestimating your opponent. Then assemble the senior officers. I want to meet with them all in one hour. We have much to discuss.

"You are dismissed, Major."

A brief exchange of salutes followed before the adjutant departed, jogging down the slope with keen agility, slowing down only to cross a patch of treacherous scree. The general watched him until he disappeared amongst the trees, then once again lifted his eyes to admire the majestic mountain sunrise. His lips pulled apart in what he considered to be a smile, but which remained just feral enough that some might have questioned the use of the term. Never to his face, of course.

The expression was not one he indulged in often, but it seemed to him that it was more than called for on this particular occasion. After all, a new day was dawning over Arendelle. How ironic that he should come back to it now via paths that had led him through the lands of its ancestral enemy. Ironic, but also somehow fitting. For the words _fjell kuling_ meant "mountain gale," and that was how he would descend upon his homeland. He would be a raging storm, sweeping away all that might stand in his path. He would have answers. He would have justice. He would have everything that he was owed and more.

Ragnarr, former King of Arendelle, relished both the sunlight and the smile upon his face for a minute longer before at last beginning his descent. The time had come. Time to move forward. Time to set things right.

Time to reclaim his own.

* * *

 **A/N: Well, you can't say I'm not ambitious. I just hope I can actually pull this all off.  
**


	9. Talking in Her Sleep

Kristoff kept a wary eye on the snow-covered paths that twisted through the mountains. So far, there had been little need to worry at the reins. After all, every time he had traveled these routes in the past, Sven had been right there with him. Now the reindeer seemed to know exactly where they needed to go, requiring only the most minimal of guidance from his friend. Kristoff's job was mainly to keep an eye out for signs that could indicate trouble up ahead and to choose a detour if his instincts told him that their usual paths might be blocked or too dangerous.

Still, he spared a glance every now and then to his companion in the seat beside him. Though never as talkative as her sister, Elsa had still been unnervingly quiet ever since they had departed the capital. She had barely spoken two words after they had climbed beyond the foothills. She also seemed at a loss what to do with her hands. Sometimes, they lay folded in her lap. Other times, they were tucked tightly beneath her armpits. At the moment, one clutched the armrest while she stared out across the chasm that they were skirting at what some might have considered a reckless speed. If Elsa was aware of the potential risk, she gave no sign. Her worries lay elsewhere.

For the umpteenth time, Kristoff tried to think of something he might say to comfort her, or at least to pull her out of herself for a short while. It seemed to him that she was in danger of withdrawing from the world again, and he knew that Anna would not want to see her give in to her fears like that. Both sisters had worked too hard to overcome that instinct, but it clearly had not been wiped out entirely. Unfortunately, casual conversation was not exactly one of his strengths. Neither were subtlety or delicacy, both of which he was pretty confident were called for in this situation. That made finding the right words all the more difficult.

"It will be dark soon."

"What?" he asked distractedly, slightly irritated by being interrupted in his search for a way to break the silence. Then it clicked. "Oh. Oh, yeah." He examined the sky. The sun had just descended behind the mountains, plunging their feet into deep shadow though the snow upon the peaks still reflected a pale indigo light from the eastern sky. Behind the western range, the sky was ablaze, shading from a band of gold just above the crests through several shades of amber and into corals and lavenders high overhead.

Kristoff marveled less at the beauty than at how quickly the day had passed.

"Well, we can hang out the lantern then. That should give Sven enough light to see by. It will hardly be the first time we've found our way in the dark."

"I think we should find a place to stop and camp for the night."

He looked at her then as though she had suggested they set the sled on fire. "You can't be serious! We can't afford to stop now. We already lost too much time finding a way around that avalanche that had blocked Skalikke Pass."

"I know, and if it had just been snow, I might have been able to clear it. But it had ripped up a third of the forest on its way down, and the uprooted trees were all tangled together and..."

"Hey, nobody's blaming you, alright? I'm just saying we need to make up ground, that's all."

"Well, I blame me," Elsa replied miserably. "I doubt the Snow Queen would let something like that slow her down. But it doesn't matter. Either way, we need to stop for the night."

"I don't see why. Like I said, Sven and I have gone on plenty of night runs before. In fact, when we were trying to make our way up the North Mountain with Anna, she insisted that..."

Kristoff wondered if the awful taste that suddenly coated his tongue was that of boot leather. Certainly, he had managed to plant his foot quite firmly into his mouth with his casual mention of Anna at that particular moment. The pain reflected on Elsa's face made that abundantly clear.

"Look, I didn't mean..."

She waved his apology away. "That isn't the point. I'm sure you know how to make your way through the mountains in the dark. But I've lost track of how many hours we've gone since our last break. Sven must be exhausted."

"He can keep going a while longer yet. Can't you, buddy?"

Sven gave no answer – not a grunt nor snort nor even a turn of his head. He simply kept toiling away, dragging the sled further and further along the narrow, treacherous trail.

"See?" Kristoff gestured toward the reindeer as though he had answered aloud. Inside, though, he winced. He had been so distracted with his own worries that he had not paid enough attention to his friend's condition. Sven's lack of response wasn't a show of stolid determination. He was indeed beginning to flag from his prolonged exertion.

"Believe me, I'm as anxious to catch up to Anna as you are," Elsa replied, "but we have to be sensible about this. It won't be as easy as just picking her up and heading back home, you know. When the time comes, I'm going to need all my strength, and that means sleep. And though your sled might be the latest model, this bench isn't exactly built for that level of comfort." She squirmed awkwardly to emphasize the point.

"But..."

"Plus, even in the best case, I have a feeling we'll need to get away in a hurry. That means Sven will need to be well-rested too."

"But..."

"Kristoff." Her voice wasn't angry, but it carried definite undertones of warning.

Glancing ahead of them again, he sighed. It was plain that she was not about to let this matter rest or change her mind. Truth be told, he really couldn't blame her. As much as he might hate to admit it, she was probably right.

"Fine," he said grudgingly. "Fine, you win. But we need to go a bit further before we stop. Not too far ahead, the path broadens out into a saddle between two mountains. It's reasonably sheltered from the wind, and there's even a small grove of trees there. With a little luck, that should allow us to replenish whatever firewood we end up using. We can make camp there for the night. Even so, I think we ought to be prepared to head out again no later than first light."

"Fair enough," Elsa replied through a mostly-stifled yawn.

• • •

Their dinner was a modest affair, even considering the circumstances. Elsa's stomach was still too twisted in knots to allow for much of an appetite, but Kristoff insisted that she eat something anyway. Having argued earlier that they all needed to maintain their strength, she couldn't exactly disagree with him. Still, she barely finished the single sausage he cooked for her over the fire, while he managed to down several. Sven, who seemed more interested in sleep than anything else, nevertheless allowed himself to be tempted by a few carrots before curling up beneath the boughs of a nearby tree. He was the first of their little band to fall asleep. The other two remained awake a while longer, staring into the fire as the night grew steadily colder. It looked like they might once again have run out of things to say, until Kristoff finally spoke.

"Do you have a plan?"

Elsa lifted her eyes and peered at him over the crackling flames. "I thought we already settled on that. We'll rest tonight, then set out again first thing in the morning. I can still feel Olaf's magic. It's distant, but it's there. And even if I lose it for some reason, we should be able to continue heading north at least until we reach Lapland."

"Yeah, I know that part. But do you have a plan for when we get there? What are we going to do when we get to the Snow Queen's palace?"

"We aren't going to do anything. You and Sven will wait with the sled by the edge of her garden, or whatever it was Gerda said that Finnish woman called it. That's where the reindeer dropped off Gerda back then, so it ought to be safe for you too. Then I'll go into the palace alone."

"You do realize that, as plans go, that one's pretty terrible, right? For one thing, it assumes the impossible: that Sven and I would let you face that woman alone."

"We've already been over that..."

"And second," he said, steamrolling right over her objections, "it doesn't seem to include any useful bits about how you plan to find Anna, how you're hoping to free her, and how you're going to defeat the Snow Queen. At the very least, you could have added, 'Then I'll bring Anna back out, and we'll all head home.' Any plan that doesn't include that bit is a pretty lousy one."

His eyes stubbornly held onto Elsa's, at least until she turned away and resumed her intent examination of the fire. Then his face darkened.

"You don't plan on coming back out, do you?"

"I plan to free Anna, whatever that takes."

"Okay, you've already demonstrated that you haven't really thought this through when you said you were going in alone. That's not happening. Now you expect me to believe that you think Anna is just going to walk out of there and leave _you_ behind? Are we both talking about the same Anna here?"

"I'm not sure that we'll have any other choice."

"Uh-uh. You don't get to start talking like that. I watched you face off with the Snow Queen, remember? I saw you take down her snow soldiers and keep her ice at bay. You held your own against her! I don't see any reason why you can't do that again."

"Kristoff, that fight took almost everything I had! By the time it was over, I was exhausted. But she… she flew out of the castle on an island of ice! And it seemed like it took as little effort for her as it would take me to make a snowball."

"Yeah, but didn't you build an entire ice palace in about a minute? Didn't you freeze the fjord in seconds? Oh, and I seem to recall you lifting all the snow in the kingdom at one point too."

"That was different," she protested. "I only held it for a few moments, and I didn't have to keep it stable enough for anybody to ride on top of it. It's a matter of concentration. The harder I have to focus on what I'm doing, the more it takes out of me."

"Well then, problem solved. Don't think about it, just do it! It seems to me like that's when you're at your most powerful anyway. When you froze Arendelle, you didn't even realize you'd done it, right?"

"But that's the problem! If I don't remain focused, it's all too easy to lose control. That's when things go wrong. That's when I... hurt people."

"Elsa, I'm not sure you can be afraid of hurting the Snow Queen if we want to have any hope of getting Anna back. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be too upset if it happened either. Back in the courtyard, she certainly didn't seem to have any qualms about injuring anyone… or worse."

"Neither did Hans. Is that what you want me to be?"

"No! No, I didn't mean… I'm just saying that I don't think you're going to be able to hold back this time. It's plain enough that she's at least as strong as you are. If you don't give it everything you've got, then she's going to win. It's as simple as that."

"Where magic is concerned, nothing is ever simple, Kristoff. It's barely been half a year since I've begun seriously using my powers again. From what Kai and Gerda told us, the Snow Queen's been using hers for at least half a century, and probably much longer than that. Even if I was every bit as strong as her, I don't have anywhere near the experience. If this comes down to another battle, I don't see how I can possibly win."

"There has to be a way, and I don't mean just handing yourself over to her either. We still have a long trip ahead of us. We have time. I'm sure between the two of us, we can think of something. But you can't give up, alright? We just have to talk it out, that's all."

Elsa once again regarded the fire in brooding silence. Kristoff, unsure what else to say, picked up a long stick and prodded the tinder. The flames danced energetically, seeking stable footing on the shifting wood before they finally settled down again, now standing a little taller than they had been before.

"That might just work."

Kristoff looked across at Elsa, confused. He'd been lost in his own thoughts and hadn't been expecting to hear her speak again anytime soon. "Sorry, what?"

"Maybe the two of us just need to talk."

It didn't seem like she was answering his question so much as just continuing her earlier private train of thought. Still, the fact that she was actually agreeing with him for a change was a pleasant enough surprise that it buoyed his spirits somewhat.

"Yes! Exactly! I couldn't agree more. That's just what we need to do. Okay, so here's what I was thinking. Maybe we could..."

"I need to go to sleep."

Kristoff verbally skidded to a stop. "Wait, I thought you said you wanted to talk."

"Absolutely."

"Well then, why wait? It isn't that late yet. Of course, if you're tired, I suppose we could pick it up in the morning, but..."

"No, the sooner we talk, the better. That's why I need to go to sleep."

He stared at her in abject befuddlement. Then, running a hand over his face, he sighed. "Why do I get the feeling I'm already not a part of this conversation?"

Having made her decision, Elsa was loath to delay any longer than necessary. Even so, she leaned forward into the light of the fire and quickly explained exactly what she had in mind.

• • •

"Fare? Fare!"

Elsa stood upon an ice floe as it drifted slowly through a gray mist. Or maybe it was simply the curling and twisting of the fog that gave the illusion of motion. Either way, she didn't give much thought to it. It made no difference, just as it hardly mattered which of them was lost in the haze. One way or the other, she needed to find her dark twin.

"Fare!" she called again, turning in a circle and straining to penetrate the gloom. She had no idea if this would even work. She'd never tried to summon her doppelganger before. Fare had always been the one to decide when she felt like making an appearance. Frankly, Elsa was rather surprised that she'd been able to retain enough presence of mind while sleeping to even make the attempt. She considered this to be a good sign, though, since she rarely had such control over her dreams unless Fare was involved in some way.

"Fare!"

"Elsa!"

An indistinct shape appeared before her, wavering in and out of sight as the mist ebbed and then thickened again. Elsa squinted. It was hard to say for certain, but it didn't seem to be moving toward her. Rather, its line of travel seemed to be perpendicular to her own, though Elsa still could not tell which of them was actually moving or whether all sense of movement was a mere hallucination. It might well be all in her imagination.

 _Of course, it's my imagination,_ she chided herself. _I'm dreaming, aren't I?_

"I'm over here, Fare!" She began to edge cautiously toward the hazy figure, unsure where the edge of her particular floe might be, if there even was one. Fare appeared to have stopped at the sound of her last cry. This struck Elsa as strange. Was it actually possible that they had each been searching for the other?

The fog was so thick that it made distances almost impossible to guess. So she was startled when the familiar face suddenly coalesced in front of her. She was even more surprised by what happened next.

"There you are!" Fare reached out and grabbed Elsa by the elbows. The look on her face was one of tremendous relief, which was odd enough, but there were hints of deeper emotions hiding there as well. Elsa had seen them in the mirror often enough that she thought she could put a name to some of them. Grief. Guilt. Fear?

She had come here seeking answers, but she had not expected that the first question out of her mouth would be, "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry," Fare answered. "I'm sorry. I should have done more. I should have warned you. I wanted to, so many times. But I couldn't. I couldn't. I wasn't allowed."

Elsa clasped Fare's arms, trying to offer support even though she herself was more troubled than she cared to admit. "What do you mean? Who wouldn't let you?"

It was clear that Fare wanted to look away, to hide her face. But she didn't, so the pain in her eyes was all too easy to see when she answered.

"The Snow Queen."

Though she had expected to learn as much when she first made the decision to seek out Fare, actually hearing the words (and spoken in her own voice) still made Elsa shudder. When she replied, she couldn't keep the revulsion out of her voice. "So she is a part of me then. You are a part of her."

Fare's hands tightened their grip, afraid that Elsa might pull away. "Please don't hate me. It isn't what you think. At least, it isn't anymore."

"Anymore? So what was it before? And what is it now?"

Fare looked more miserable than ever. "So many people want to know the reason for their existence, why they were brought into the world, yet they live their entire lives and never find out. But I know. I've always known. From the very beginning, my purpose was to make sure you would embrace your magic.

"It was easy at first. When you were young, you didn't fear it nearly as much. You took care to hide it, once you were old enough that your mother and father could make you understand, but you still enjoyed it. Of course, it didn't hurt that it always made Anna happy. It wasn't often that you could say no to her when she asked you to use your magic. And that was enough. You were experimenting, you were growing, you were learning who you were. I didn't need to do anything but watch and wait, in case you might need a little nudge along the way.

"Then that one horrible night happened, and everything changed. Suddenly, you retreated inside yourself and locked your magic away. I wanted to help you right then, but you were too scared. I peeked into your dreams. You never saw me; I made sure of that. But I saw you reliving your darkest fears night after night. Time and again, I watched you cradle Anna and weep at what you had done.

"More than once, I considered showing myself to you back then. If I could have helped you see that it wasn't really your fault, that it had just been an accident, I thought that maybe I could convince you not to give up on your gift. The more I watched, though, and the more I listened to the conversations you had with your parents and to the arguments you had with yourself inside your head, the clearer it became that you weren't yet ready. Had I tried to approach you in your dreams, I feared that I might only make matters worse.

"So I waited, agonizing over what I ought to do. I knew what I was supposed to do, but I couldn't see any way to go about it. With the state you were in, everything I could think of seemed just as likely to drive you even further away from your powers. Beyond that, I was young then too. Nothing had prepared me for the difficulties we were both facing. All I could do was continue to watch and wait and hope that something would change.

"And finally, it did! You decided to start experimenting with your magic all on your own, because you wanted to be able to leave your room and be a proper sister to Anna again at a time when she needed you most. Suddenly, there was a chance. You were trying, attempting to understand how it all worked.

"Sometimes at night, when you seemed to need it, I would slip quietly into your dreams and whisper to you. I didn't want to risk doing too much, so they were only the tiniest of hints. I knew from watching you during your normal lessons that you often learned as much from the mistakes you made, if not more. If you were ever going to truly understand how to wield your powers properly, I figured I needed to let you do the same thing.

"But then, you got stuck. You kept trying and failing to make your snow hold its shape for you. I nudged you all that I could, but it just wasn't working and you were beginning to get discouraged. So when that one afternoon came, when you fell asleep on the bench beneath your window, I decided that the time had finally come to take a chance."

"I remember," Elsa said quietly. "You appeared to me in my dream for the very first time. You told me to look out the window, and when I woke up, I saw a load of ice being delivered to the castle. That was what convinced me to start exploring it instead of snow."

"Yes, exactly!"

"I also remember that you were positively rude about the whole business."

Fare actually blushed. "I know. I was... different then. As I said, I didn't have a lot of experience. My attempts at subtle guidance had stopped working, and frankly, I was every bit as frustrated as you were. Besides, I hadn't exactly had the opportunity to talk to anyone before that moment, so my social skills were… well, nonexistent really."

The frown that had appeared on Elsa's face at the memory of Fare's earlier behavior did not much soften in response to these excuses. It was clear, however, that Fare felt an urgent need to regain her goodwill. Her very posture was like that of a penitent child who had rushed to confess her misbehavior to a parent, and now dreaded the inevitable scolding.

"Elsa, do you remember when I told you that I'm a child of many mothers? Yes, the Snow Queen is one of them. That's probably where I got my sharp tongue and my more arrogant tendencies. When we were both younger, I think her influence on me was even stronger.

"The thing is, you're a mother of sorts to me as well. Or maybe a sister or… or some kind of relation. Anyway, the power that gave birth to me might have come from her, but now it belongs to you. Yes, in some way, maybe I am a part of the Snow Queen. But if so, then it's a part she cast off decades ago. Since then, I've spent my whole life – if you can call it that – inside your head. By now, I'm more a part of you than I ever was of her. And there's more of you in me, too.

"You know how she said that she hadn't expected to wait so long to find out that you had magic? Well, I'm pretty sure I was never intended to spend all those years with you either. I wasn't supposed to come to know you the way that I have."

Letting go of Elsa at last, Fare wrapped her arms about herself in a pose that Elsa recognized immediately. The dark-haired woman took a step back and shook her head.

"When you stopped using your magic again, I was hurt. I truly believed that I'd been trying to help you. By then, I really didn't care whose idea it was. You were always so much happier whenever you embraced your abilities, and I wanted that for you. Maybe I was being a little selfish, too. I enjoyed getting to talk with you and not having to hide all the time.

"But then you rejected your powers a second time, and you turned your back on me. I'll admit, I didn't take it well. I was angry, and I said some things that I shouldn't have. I didn't want to be alone. And your mind had been a much nicer place to live in when you weren't hating yourself. It had been like feeling the warmth of the sun for the first time in years. So when I saw the thunderclouds rolling in again, I panicked. Naturally, I only ended up making matters worse.

"So I went back into hiding. I still watched you quietly, though. There wasn't much else I could do. Only this time, I knew firsthand what fear felt like. I understood what it means to watch everything you care about slip away, especially when you blame yourself and all the mistakes you've made.

"For the first time, I really began to question everything. Why had I done what I'd done? What was it that I really wanted? What should I have done differently? I knew what I was meant to do, but I was no longer sure if it was the _right_ thing to do. I was unsure of who or even what I was. It took me a long time to sort all of that out."

"I know what that's like." Elsa's features had slowly softened as she'd listened to Fare. She was having trouble deciding if it was strange how much the two of them had in common, or if it was the most blindly obvious thing in the world. Either way, it was quickly becoming impossible for her not to sympathize with… herself?

Fare smiled a little. "Strange, isn't it? Even I'm not sure where the line is between us anymore, if there ever was one. Mostly, I've just stopped worrying about it. We are who we are, and there isn't much we can do to change that."

"Mother was always fond of saying that who we are never stops changing. None of us is the same person we used to be. I've thought about that a lot over the years, because I spent so much time wanting to be someone else. In the end, though, I think it's an incredibly hopeful idea. It means that, no matter what mistakes we might make, we always have the opportunity to learn from them and to become the sort of person who wouldn't make that same mistake again."

"And I've done my best to do just that," Fare replied with a nod. "Even though I still believed that accepting your powers would be the best thing for you, I realized that continuing to push when you weren't ready wasn't going to help anyone. Instead, I looked for other ways that I could help.

"You always seemed more self-confident when you felt in control of the magic, so I thought maybe it would work the other way too. I tried to do what I could to help you feel good about yourself. I helped you help Anna sneak out of the castle. I showed up whenever you were feeling particularly low. I tried to be there for you when you lost your parents. I..."

"You tried to be my friend," Elsa finished for her.

"I don't know that I was ever very good at it," Fare admitted. "If I had been, maybe things would have turned out differently. When you fled into the mountains after your coronation, I felt like I'd failed you. Then you built the Ice Palace, and it seemed like you had put aside the fear that had weighed you down for most of your life. I should have been glad. After all, hadn't that been my goal from the very beginning?

"And yet, I wasn't. Even if you had finally accepted that part of yourself, I knew you still weren't really happy. That wasn't the life you wanted. You told yourself you were free, but it wasn't true. You were still hiding, and you were still alone.

"You didn't even know who the Snow Queen was then, yet you were about to become just like her. You were ready to retreat from the world completely, even more than you had before. You had built yourself a fortress where you thought no one could ever touch you again, and you were determined to spend the rest of your life there. You'd even convinced yourself that it was a good thing.

"A part of me – the very oldest part that had been put there before you were even born – felt vindicated. 'Yes,' it said, 'the world is heartless and cruel, and this is the only way that those who are different can survive.' But I had become so much more than that one small, bitter seed. What I was, I couldn't have said, but I knew that I was no longer just the Snow Queen's puppet."

"Then why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you let me know where you had come from, how I'd gotten my powers? Why keep it all a secret?"

The pain and betrayal crept into Elsa's voice. She had come here to learn whatever Fare might be able tell her about her sister's abductor. Though she felt for this strange apparition who was both a part of her and yet something disturbingly other, the suggestion that she was in any way similar to the Snow Queen shook her badly. The realization of exactly how many people had kept the secret of what that woman had done to her only made it hurt all the more – not least because it reminded her of everything that she had helped to hide from Anna for so long. It made her more determined than ever to find some way to set Anna free.

Fare, meanwhile, looked to be on the verge of tears. "I wanted to! You have no idea how much I did! I simply couldn't."

"Were you afraid of how I would react? Was that it? Were you scared that, if I knew the truth, I wouldn't want anything to do with you ever again?"

"No! I mean, all of that's true, but it wouldn't have kept me from telling you. You deserved to know. When I say I couldn't, that's exactly what I mean. Whatever part of me still belongs to the Snow Queen, it wouldn't let me. That's why I could never come right out and answer you whenever you asked me what I was. That's why, even just a short time ago, I couldn't warn you properly like I wanted to.

"I felt her coming. I suppose it must be like how you can feel your own magic in Olaf. And I got scared. I knew that nothing good could come of her arrival. So I slipped into your dream and I tried to tell you, but I wasn't allowed. I couldn't even use her name. I am so sorry! I failed you again. That's all I've ever done. No matter how hard I've tried to help, I always… I..." Fare's face disappeared behind her hands.

It was impossible to say which of them was more surprised when, a second later, they both found Elsa's arms wrapped around Fare's torso, pulling her close and holding her tight. Fare's eyes popped open for a moment in utter shock. Then she simply allowed herself to melt into the hug, returning it in kind.

"It wasn't your fault," Elsa whispered into her ear.

"It was never yours either."

"You can say her name now. Does that mean she's no longer holding you back?

"I… I think so. I think she just didn't want the surprise to be spoiled. She imagined you would be excited when you found out. But now that you know..." She trailed off with a shudder.

"Do you still want to help me?"

Elsa felt Fare's head bob up and down beside her own. Only then did she pull away, just far enough so that they could look at each other straight in the eye.

"Then tell me everything. Everything that you know about the Snow Queen. If I'm to have any chance of helping Anna, then I need to know as much as I possibly can. Secrets have hurt this family too much already. I won't let them destroy what's left of it."

"I'll tell you whatever I can," Fare said "If there's anything I can do to make this right, I will. I promise."

"Thank you." Elsa reached up and wiped a tear off a familiar cheek. "And not just for this. Thank you for being there all those times when I felt like I was completely alone. Thank you for helping me understand my magic and myself. Thank you for reminding me who I was even when all I wanted was to be somebody else."

Any words of reply seemed to have gotten lost along the way, but Elsa read all that she needed to in the eyes of her twin, her other self. At last, and like never before, they understood one another. In a way, Elsa supposed that meant that she had come a little bit closer to finally understanding herself.

Fare cleared her throat, tried to speak, then had to stop and clear it again. Perhaps that was a little strange, given that she had no real throat or vocal cords. In truth, her entire body was a mere construct of thought and magic. Still, that had not made her tears any less real. Eventually, she got herself under control, and her voice remembered the proper road by which to make its escape.

"So," she said with all the tremulous courage she could muster, "where do you want to start?"


	10. Nameless Fears

"What are their names?"

Olaf, feeling like he'd been at risk of missing too much while stuck in the rear compartment, had scrambled up the back of the driver's seat and dropped down between the two women. Though night had long since fallen, they had not yet stopped their northward march. Despite herself, Anna had eventually been unable to keep her eyes open any longer. Now she slept in what looked like an incredibly uncomfortable position, propped up awkwardly in the corner between the bench and the side panel.

The winter sky was shockingly clear, with the panoply of stars overhead hardly seeming to twinkle. The snow reflected enough moonlight that the path ahead remained clearly visible, winding through the darkness like a silvered river. Olaf stood on the front edge of the bench, leaning forward with his hands on the dash panel. By that same light, he watched the two beasts that pulled them along with seemingly tireless strength.

"They have no names. At least none that we might speak. Our tongues are as ill-equipped to their language as they are to ours."

It wasn't that Olaf didn't recognize the predicament he and Anna had somehow gotten themselves into. He had seen everything that this strange woman had done back in the palace courtyard, so he knew what she was capable of. Somehow though, ever since he'd first said the word, he'd been unable to shake the notion of her as a grandmother of sorts. And since he really liked the family he had found so far in Arendelle, it seemed to him that making it bigger could only be a good thing.

After all, Elsa could be dangerous. So could his brother, Marshmallow. Even Anna could. He'd seen her hit Hans so hard, she'd sent him toppling backward off the deck of that boat. That didn't make any of them bad, did it? He still loved them, and they loved him. Surely there was room for one more in that circle, if they could just get to know one another a little better. Besides, she'd removed Anna's bindings, hadn't she? That had to be a good sign.

"But how do they know when you're talking to them if you don't give them names?"

"You do not know my name, and yet you're talking to me quite ably."

"Hey, yeah, why don't I know your name? You already know mine. I'm Olaf, and that's Anna. And you are…?"

"Far from home," she replied with a wry smirk. Then, so quickly that the little snowman could not be sure he'd really seen it in the dim light, a brief twinge of sadness flickered deep within her eyes. She glanced up at the sky, seemingly searching for something that might have been hidden in the spaces between the brilliant pinpoints. Eventually, her gaze returned to the road before them. "But I suppose you can call me the Snow Queen."

"Ooh, you're a queen, too? So how big is your kingdom? I hope we get to meet some of your people. I always like making new friends. I bet you have a fancy castle with lots of servants. Do you have a crown?"

She laughed quietly. "I do have a castle, but I live there alone. I claim neither servants nor subjects, apart from my animal friends. And I have never had any need for a crown."

Olaf thought about all of this, then asked, "What about a Snow King?"

"There is no king."

"Oh! So what's he like?"

"Who?"

"The Snow King!"

"There is no-" She stopped mid-sentence, this time hearing the sound of the words as she spoke them. She considered Olaf with obvious amusement. "I have no king either. As for my kingdom, it consists only of those lands around my palace that I guard and protect from intruders. Few have found reason to venture onto them uninvited, and I invite fewer still."

"So you have an entire kingdom all to yourself? That sounds lonely."

"It can be..."

Olaf waited for her to finish the sentence. The inflection on the last word suggested that she had not brought the thought to its full conclusion. But when time went by without further words, he decided to move on.

"Well, at least you have the bears for company."

She nodded. "Yes, and others besides. Though I do not open my home to many people, animals are another matter. Bears, birds, foxes, hares – all manner of arctic creatures. For the most part, I find them far more agreeable than the average human."

"I like animals too! One of my best friends is a reindeer, you know. His name is Sven, and he really likes carrots." He looked cross-eyed down his long nose, trying to see if there were any teeth marks present. "Sometimes a little too much."

"Ah, but that's part of the reason why I find animals such pleasant company. In a way, they possess a superior rationality. Once you understand what it is an animal wants, it is not difficult to predict how they will behave in any given situation. The rules that govern their actions are simple, sensible, even logical."

Olaf looked at the bears again. "Maybe," he said, his voice losing some of its usual buoyancy, "but then why did they have to attack Polla? She hadn't done anything to either of them. She was only protecting her friends."

"And so were they. The three of us have known each other for a very long time – long enough that they have come to associate me with my magical creations. I do not know what sense it is that allows them to make the connection, but when your Polla attacked my golem, they saw it as an attack upon me and so responded in kind. I am sorry. As another creation of Elsa's, I would have liked the chance to get to know her better."

"But the soldiers were only trying to protect Elsa, too. Why did you have to hurt them? I know they shot first, but they couldn't really have done anything to harm you, could they?"

"Not likely, but the fact remains that, had they been able to, they would most certainly have done so."

"Isn't that their job when the queen is in danger?"

"Oh, men have been coming up with reasons since the species was born. They were closer to nature then. At first, it was about survival. You kill what you need to eat, and you kill what is trying to eat you. It was a small step from there to using violence to protect your family, though even that was understandable.

"But then they started getting ideas. They began to create things, invent things, discover things. Then they saw the things that others had, and they wanted them too. How long do you think it took before someone decided that the easiest way to get those things was to take them by force? How long after that before they realized that certain things made the use of force even more effective? Mankind has loved its weapons ever since.

"They love them so dearly that it seems like they fear running out of reasons to use them. So, to ensure that never happens, they keep inventing new ones. Nations, religions, money, property – anything that can turn a would-be neighbor into a threat.

"The problem arises when those other people have weapons of their own, which suddenly makes attacking them a risky proposition. So why take that chance when you can target animals instead? Now the hunt is no longer limited just to food or self-defense. They seek the furs and the antlers and useless trophies to hang on their walls."

The Snow Queen's voice, which had started off mildly enough, had grown steadily more agitated while she'd been speaking. By this point, her nostrils were flaring in heated indignation. Whether or not Olaf picked up on this probably wouldn't have mattered, considering that his curiosity had latched onto one particular detail that demanded an explanation.

"But you're wearing fur right now."

"This? This is not fur." Reaching up to the collar of her long traveling cloak, she plucked a few strands from the trim and handed them to the snowman. Cradling them in his stick fingers, he held them up to one eye and examined them closely.

"Hmm. It looks like hair, but…" He gasped. "Is this ice?"

The Snow Queen smiled. "Nature can be an amazing inspiration, creating beauty in even the most unexpected of places. If you venture out into the woods on a damp night when the temperature is right around freezing, and if you look in the right places, you might find something very similar. It grows on dead and decaying branches, and is so incredibly fine and delicate that it usually melts as soon as the sun rises.

"Men use fur to shield them from the cold. I have no such need. In fact, I find the heat to be rather uncomfortable."

"Oh, I love heat!" Olaf interrupted. "It's the best. A warm fire, a tropical beach, the summer sun!"

That earned him a quizzical look. "But you are made of snow."

"Yeah, that's why I'm a snowman! Of course, I've never really understood that. I mean, firemen aren't made of fire, are they? Ooh, but wouldn't it be neat if they were? I bet a real fireman and I would just be the best of friends. We'd go everywhere together and have all sorts of fu-u-un." He sighed, a far off, dreamy look on his face.

"Yes, well… be that as it may. I've found trimming my cloak with hair ice to be most refreshing. It helps to keep me cool when I visit warmer climes, and it really feels quite pleasant against my skin."

"I don't have skin." Olaf's expression changed to one of distracted contemplation. "In fact, I'm beginning to think Elsa must have forgotten quite a few important bits when she made me."

"If I were you, I should be thankful. It is no great feat to be human. It's quite another matter to be something unique and extraordinary."

"Wow. For as much as you dislike people, you sure seem determined to get one of them to come and keep you company."

"Old habits, I'm afraid. Besides, Elsa is… different. She too is unique, and she carries within her the potential for true greatness. She simply does not realize this yet. That is what I seek to teach her. Left on her own, I fear she might never find it. With my help, however, she could do incredible things. Together, there is no limit to what the two of us might accomplish."

"And then, you might not have to be so lonely, either!"

The pause that followed spoke volumes, or at least it would have if Olaf hadn't been distracted at that moment by a glimpse of a startled ermine darting for cover as their sled drove past.

"Being alone is not the same as being lonely," the Snow Queen replied in a hushed voice.

"But if you have friends, then you don't have to be either! You do have friends, don't you?" He looked at her as though he could only conceive of one possible answer to that question.

"Aside from the animals? No, I do not."

Olaf might have been the only person in Arendelle more determined to make new friends than Princess Anna. So the idea of someone with no friends at all baffled him – almost as much as Elsa's love of books and for similar reasons. He couldn't read, nor could he ever quite keep from introducing himself to every new person he saw. After all, you never knew who might be interested in giving out a warm hug or two!

"I'm sorry," he chuckled in embarrassment. "It sounded for a second there like you said that you didn't have any friends. I must have misheard. Maybe it's because I don't have any ears. When we get back, I should ask Gerda for some cauliflower to go along with my carrot."

"I used to once." The Snow Queen seemed to be continuing her earlier statement rather than addressing Olaf's confusion. "A very long time ago. But they are all gone now."

"That's okay. You can make new friends! It's easy. I do it all the time." She didn't reply right away, but Olaf, always eager to help, jumped in to fill the gap. "If you don't remember how, I could show you."

"I remember," she replied, her voice barely above a whisper. "That is the problem. I remember all too well."

Before Olaf could respond, the sleigh's runners encountered a sharp bump of some sort, perhaps a stone or tree root hidden beneath the layer of snow. The jostling was enough to jerk Anna awake.

"Wha-? Where am I?" She sat up and looked around muzzily, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. When her surroundings penetrated through the haze of interrupted dreams, she shuddered. Drawing back into the corner again, she eyed her captor warily.

"It's okay, Anna," Olaf assured her as he plopped himself back down on the bench. "The Snow Queen and I were just talking, and..."

"Snow Queen?" Anna looked at the proud woman on the other side of the bench. "When I was younger, I had to learn every kingdom, nation, and empire across all of Europe. Maybe I could never remember them all, but I don't think I would have forgotten a Kingdom of Snow."

"Ah, but memories are tricky and fickle things. How could you be expected to learn something that all others have forgotten?"

"It wouldn't be the first time," Anna said moodily, thinking of her discovery of the hidden passageway that had, for a short time during her eleventh year, allowed her to sneak out of the castle and visit the town beyond its walls. "So that's where we're headed then? Back to your kingdom?"

"It is."

"Then I suppose you'll lock me in some dungeon and wait for Elsa to arrive to try and rescue me."

The Snow Queen regarded Anna out of the corner of her eye. "I have not yet decided. Such imprisonment hardly seems necessary. I do not believe that you could escape from my palace, but even if you did, there would be nowhere for you to go. Most people would not consider the lands surrounding my home to be a terribly hospitable environment, you see. You would not last long out there on your own."

"Oh, you'd be surprised what I can do by myself. I spent most of my childhood on my own. Well, I mean, I had my parents, but they were busy a lot of the time. And then after their ship was lost at sea, I didn't even have them. Of course, I did have Kai and Gerda and the rest of the palace staff, and they all did their best to look after me. But when Elsa ran off after her coronation, well then I went after her all by myself. At least until I met Kristoff. And Sven. And then we all met Olaf, and…

"Look, it doesn't matter. The point is, even though I may have had help before, there's still plenty I can do without it. I'm not afraid. Just because I'm a princess doesn't mean I'm some frail flower who's going to wilt in the face of danger. I know how to take care of myself. I'm… um… I'm a skilled equestrian! Yeah, that's right. And I've rappelled down a cliff face, and I have a mean throwing arm that can hit almost anything from at least thirty paces, and… and… and I know how to fight with a sword, and..."

"All very impressive, I'm sure, but nothing that would be much help when it comes to surviving outdoors during a winter's night near the arctic circle."

"Well, I could probably… That is, I think I might be able to..." Anna's shoulders sagged. "Fine, maybe you have a point. But that still doesn't mean I'm scared. Elsa will figure out some way to save me, I'm sure of it."

"Oh, that really couldn't be simpler," said the Snow Queen. "All she has to do is agree to stay with me so that I can teach her everything she needs to know about her powers. I think it should be obvious that she belongs by my side, after all. No one else will ever be able to understand her the way that I can. If she does that, then you will be free to go."

"Okay, first? Elsa belongs with me in Arendelle, not locked away in some frozen palace. She already tried that once. It didn't really work. And second, we're sisters. That means there isn't anybody who understands Elsa better than I do."

"Really? But of all the people you mentioned who supported you during your lonely childhood, I noticed that you failed to mention anything about Elsa being with you during those years. Not even after your parents had died. On top of that, you told me that she'd kept her magic hidden from you for thirteen years. I'm sorry, but I do not see how you and your sister could possibly know each other well at all, considering the very things you yourself have said."

As a princess, Anna had received extensive training on manners, etiquette, and the proper behavior expected of royalty. She sometimes played a little loose with that last one, but she always did her best to be polite at all times. Even so, she had spent enough time in the company of stablemen, soldiers, and certain head cooks over the years to have picked up at least a passing familiarity with some of the coarser aspects of language that her tutor had not seen fit to teach her. It was just such a phrase that now popped unbidden into her head.

This woman missed no detail, no matter how casual its mention. She also had an uncanny knack for twisting such things to her advantage. Considering Anna's talkative nature, which only grew worse whenever she became nervous, this was a particularly vexing talent to be facing.

"Do you know what the first thing was that Elsa made with her magic on the night that she ran away to the North Mountain?"

Anna almost started to answer Olaf's question before she realized that it hadn't been directed at her. Instead, he was looking up at the Snow Queen, his face the same picture of open innocence as ever.

"I assume it was this frozen palace of hers," the Snow Queen answered dismissively, as if mildly annoyed by the interruption. "I doubt the cold would have bothered her much, but I suppose we all like to have a place to call home."

That was when the snowman turned to look at Anna.

"No, it wasn't that," Anna said with a sentimental smile. "She made Olaf."

Surprise registered quite clearly upon the Snow Queen's face, but she overcame it soon enough. "Interesting. Still, I hardly see what that has to do with..."

"Weren't you confused about why Elsa made Olaf in the first place? You said he didn't seem to have any useful purpose. You couldn't find any logical reason for him. Well, you were right – there was nothing logical about it."

Thin stick fingers settled upon the back of Anna's hand. She rested her other hand atop of Olaf's and continued to look at him fondly, even though her words were meant for another.

"When Elsa and I were little, we loved to play in the snow. It didn't really matter if it was hers, although I guess I pestered her to use her magic anytime I thought I could get away with it. But magical or not, what mattered was that we always had fun together. And one of the things we loved to do most was build snowmen.

"One day, we were outside in the woods near the castle and… Well, no, I guess we were playing in the ballroom, and it was the middle of the night. I think I convinced Elsa to sneak out of bed just because I was wide awake or something. Anyway, it doesn't matter. The point is that we made a snowman together, just the two of us, and we did it the old-fashioned way. Elsa rolled one snowball while I did another. Then I ran down to the kitchen to borrow a carrot and some coal, and Elsa found some twigs somewhere.

"Naturally, I let her make the head, because she was always better at making funny faces than I was. Well, okay, I actually made faces all the time, no matter how often Nanny scolded me and told me I was going to freeze like that. But Elsa could _make_ faces. She knew how to shape the snow just right, even without using any magic. So when she finished, she turned it around so I could see, and then she waved its little arms and said..."

"'Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!'"

Anna and Olaf recited the line in unison, and the memory brought back a quieter echo of that night's laughter. "I suppose you could almost have called it a magical moment, and it was all the more so because there had been so little real magic involved. I remember running forward and hugging our little snowman and squealing, 'I love you, Olaf!' out of sheer delight.

"Of course, Elsa knew that what I was really saying was how much I loved her. I didn't need to say the words, any more than I need to hear her say them to me. We both knew. Besides, just spending time together was better than any words anyway. That's how it had always been between us."

Anna lapsed into silence then. She still looked at her little friend while happily remembering the warm feeling that had filled her so completely the first time she'd met him, long before his magical resurrection. The Snow Queen, for her part, simply stared ahead, gazing over the bears' backs at the thin ribbon of white that wandered off into the shadowy night.

"So you and Elsa made snowmen together," she said at last, and though it hadn't come out quite like a question, Anna still decided to answer it.

"That's right!"

"And since you clearly enjoyed it so much, I am guessing the two of you made quite a few of them."

"All the time!"

"I see. So, if I may ask, what made this one so special? Of all those many snowmen, why did Elsa decide to recreate this specific one on the night that she ran away?"

"Well, I… That is, she… I mean, um, we..."

"You said that the reason Elsa hid her powers from you was because she was afraid that she would hurt you. But now you say that you built a snowman together in the palace ballroom. I rather doubt that someone left the windows open in the middle of a blizzard, so I assume that she must have created the snow you used on that night. Clearly, she wasn't hiding her powers from you then, and yet somehow she also concealed them for thirteen years."

"That… That's not..."

"Why did Elsa suddenly become afraid of hurting you, my dear? What happened on that night to make this one particular little snowman so important to her? What did she do to you?"

"Nothing! She didn't do anything! Not on purpose, anyway. It was… it was just an accident."

"An accident that somehow made it possible for her to hide her magic from you even though you clearly had already known about it before then."

Anna found herself trembling. The inner warmth that had been brought back by memories of her first meeting with Olaf had now vanished, driven out by a cold dread that seemed to press in on her from all directions.

"Was that when your sister froze your heart?"

She bit her lip, harder than was normally her habit, to keep herself from saying anything more. Every well-meaning attempt she had made to defend herself and Elsa only ended up making matters worse. She was quickly becoming convinced that even a simple denial would somehow be turned against her.

Beside her, Olaf looked back and forth between the two women, obviously confused and worried, unsure how things had managed to take such an unexpected turn. "No," he said uncertainly, wanting as always to be helpful. "That only happened last summer."

"Ah, I see. So that was not the first time Elsa hurt you, then." Turning toward Anna, the Snow Queen reached over and brushed her fingertips across the princess's temple. Anna flinched away from her frigid touch, resentful of the intimacy it implied. It reminded her too strongly of the way both her mother and father had often tucked stray locks of hair back behind her ear. She herself had picked up and retained the habit as she'd grown older, even when no hair had actually escaped. But this woman had no right!

"I noticed how your little story started outside before you corrected yourself. There were several other details about which you seemed rather unsure as well. Tell me, how well do you truly remember that night? Or was it that day? How much of it are you sure really happened?"

"It doesn't matter!" Anna replied, anger overriding her short-lived determination to hold her tongue. "I remember enough. So what if Elsa hurt me a little. People get hurt all the time! Between falling out of trees, running into suits of armor, tipping off our bike, and all the other crazy things I did back then, I almost always had at least a couple scrapes or bruises. If anything, it was Elsa who kept me from getting into even more trouble. She looked out for me!"

"Was she looking out for you when she erased your memories?"

"What? No, she didn't…"

"There is no reason to try and deny it. Everything you have said makes it perfectly clear what happened. When you were younger, you knew about your sister's magic. But as she grew older, Elsa eventually realized the danger of having anyone who knew what she could do. If people found out, they would fear her and shun her… or worse. She was neither old enough nor skilled enough to defend herself properly, so she did the only thing she could. She erased your memories of her magic so that no one would know, and then she hid her powers for the next thirteen years."

By this point, Olaf was scratching the top of his head in befuddlement. Unfortunately, given how short his arms were, he'd had to pull one off and hold it in the other just to reach that far. "Wait, but I thought…"

Anna elbowed the snowman sharply. A little too sharply, as it turned out, for it knocked his head off-balance. It wobbled perilously for a second. Then, with a short cry of surprise, it tipped over and fell onto the floorboards by their feet.

"Ow," came Olaf's slightly muffled voice. "Ooh, I hope I didn't break my nose. Who knows when I'll be able to get another one. Oh hey, those are really nice shoes, Your Majesty! Did you make them yourself?"

"Sorry, Olaf! Sorry!" Anna bent down to retrieve her friend. "Here, let me take a look at you."

She made a show of holding the errant head, turning it this way and that in order to examine it. As if to make the most of the pale moonlight, she raised it up and held it directly between herself and the Snow Queen. Thus temporarily hidden, she quickly made a shushing gesture with one finger. Olaf's eyes grew wide for a moment, but then she felt him nod forward slightly in understanding. Giving him a grateful smile, she carefully recentered his nose beneath his eyes before setting the head back into place.

"There, good as new," she announced.

She didn't know exactly why she had decided to prevent Olaf from correcting the Snow Queen's misconception, especially since she had almost started to do exactly the same thing herself. If nothing else, it helped just knowing that this all-too-perceptive woman was nonetheless still fallible. Besides, she had already inadvertently revealed more than she'd ever intended to divulge. As least this was one thing that her kidnapper would not know, provided that Anna could avoid letting anything slip that might contradict her incorrect assumptions. In the end, it might only be a moral victory, but right then, she would gladly take any kind that she could get.

The real question, though, was why the Snow Queen would even think Elsa had the ability to erase memories? She hadn't assumed it to have been the result of an accidental use of her powers, the way that Anna had originally. No, she believed that Elsa had done it on purpose. But the only magic her sister had was over ice and snow – magic which the Snow Queen claimed had come from her. It didn't make any sense why she would assume that Elsa would be capable of doing anything else.

Unless…

"Are they boys or girls?"

"What?" Anna looked down at Olaf, who had gotten to his feet and was once again peering over the dash panel.

"The bears," he explained. "Are they boys or girls?"

"They are both male," the Snow Queen answered, "though I am not certain why it matters."

"Well, if I'm going to give them names, I need to know these things! So I'm thinking maybe... mmm… Bernie and Barney!"

"Olaf, you do know those are both just short for Bernard, right?"

"Great! That makes it even better!"

"It does?"

"Yeah, 'cause I don't think I can really tell the two of them apart anyway."

Normally, listening to Olaf's unique outlook on life would at least have brought a smile to Anna's face. Right then, however, humor didn't have much chance of penetrating the multiple layers of worry that enveloped her. The more she considered the Snow Queen's words, the more dire their implications seemed to become.

Slowly, she edged along the bench and pressed herself tightly into the corner, where she had slept not so very long ago. The extra distance didn't amount to much, but Anna now wanted as much of it as possible between herself and her captor.

She had thought of this woman as basically just an older, more experienced version of Elsa. Having already faced what she considered to be the worst that her sister's special talents could offer, she hadn't let herself get too scared by more of the same in a different package. Now though…

Now there were ominous hints of something more, something unexpected, and – at least to her mind – something far more dangerous. She tried frantically to search for another, more reasonable explanation, but her mind kept returning over and over to what appeared to be a terrible and inescapable conclusion.

It was all Anna could do to keep from curling up into a tight little ball. Because now, no matter what face she might put on for the Snow Queen's benefit, she could no longer deny one simple truth to herself.

She was absolutely and inescapably terrified of this woman and what she could do.


	11. For Those We Love

"Okay, one more time, because I want to be certain I'm understanding this. You. Have a piece of the Snow Queen. Inside your head."

Elsa sighed, wondering how many more 'one more times' there were going to be before Kristoff finally came to grips with the idea. She was doing her best to be patient. After all, it had taken years before she herself had been able to reach some sort of awkward understanding with Fare, and back then, she'd had no idea of the strange girl's even stranger origin. Keeping that in mind, she supposed that Kristoff was actually taking the revelation remarkably well.

"Yes," she answered, keeping it short and to the point. She'd tried to explain with greater nuance on previous go-rounds, but by now had decided that they would both be happier if she just kept it simple.

"And you can talk to her. It? Her."

"To that part, yes. Not to the Snow Queen herself."

"But only in your dreams."

"Right."

"And you're sure that you aren't actually… you know… just dreaming?"

"I'm sure."

"And how, exactly, can you be sure?"

"Because she's told me things – about myself, about my magic – that turned out to be real and true. She helped me when I was younger and was struggling to learn how to control my powers. We've had long conversations about deeply personal things, complicated things that you shouldn't be able to talk about sensibly inside a dream."

"And it couldn't be that you just thought you remembered dreaming about a complicated conversation after you woke up, when it really didn't happen that way at all."

"Kristoff, she tried to warn me that the Snow Queen was coming!"

She watched his lips clamp down into a tight and narrow line. He stared forward at Sven and the road ahead, though it was a road only in the loosest sense. They had descended into a long valley that nestled amid the mountains. Kristoff had decided that the relatively level run along the bottom would allow them to make up some time, even though the snow had gathered even thicker here than up on the higher passes. It lay deep enough that whatever modestly traveled path might normally have been carved out by cart and sled had been rendered indistinguishable from the rougher ground on either side.

"How do you know you can trust... her? After what the Snow Queen has done, why should we trust any part of her?"

"There's a part of me in her too, Kristoff. She's a little bit of both of us, and more than either. She's her own person, in a way."

"So you have two people inside of you? Wow. I guess that really gives new meaning to, 'talking to yourself.'"

" _I don't know. It seems perfectly normal to me."_

"Hey!" Kristoff turned an annoyed glare upon Elsa. "Cut that out!"

"Why? You do it all the time."

"Exactly. Talking for Sven is my job. Besides," he glanced back at the reindeer, "it kinda freaks me out hearing him talk in a girl's voice."

" _Don't you mean a woman's voice?"_

He shuddered and shot her another dirty look.

"Sorry." And yet, the exchange had managed to bring a smile to her face for the first time since they had begun their pursuit. Kristoff must have noticed it too, because he visibly relaxed and allowed the matter to drop, returning instead to the earlier subject.

"I still don't know about all this. After all, her name is Fare, right? That means danger. Not exactly the sort of thing that inspires a lot of trust.."

"You can hardly blame her for that. When I insisted that she needed a name, she insisted that I should choose it. And I was young and scared of… well, pretty much everything, but my powers most of all. They seemed like the most dangerous thing in the world to me, and since she kept trying to convince me to embrace them, it was the first thing that came to mind."

Kristoff paused again. "You do realize how crazy this all sounds, right?"

"Well, there is a reason why I've never told anybody about it. I wasn't even sure there was anything to tell. I had half-convinced myself that it was just my conscience nagging me in the middle of the night. That was far easier to believe than most of the other options. Now, though, I can't afford to pretend any longer. I need all the help I can get, wherever it might come from."

"So does that mean you've decided to fight? That you aren't just going to turn yourself over to the Snow Queen and surrender?"

"It means..." She hesitated. "It means that I haven't given up looking for another way."

"And this Fare. Did she help you find one?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe. Or... maybe not." She sighed in frustration. "I just don't know. It feels like I still have so many more questions than answers. But I'm still thinking, and I suspect that Fare and I haven't had our last talk on the subject."

"Uh huh. Care to share any of what you think it is that you might or might not know? Or is this something you'd rather keep between yourself and the voices in your head?"

"Kristoff! I told you about Fare because I thought you had a right to know, not so you could start questioning my sanity!"

"Look, I'm sorry, alright? But not that long ago, I was just a simple ice harvester, minding my own business up in the mountains with Sven. Every so often, we'd come back down to civilization, sell the ice, buy a few things we'd need for our next trip, and be on our way. I never had to worry about stuff like ageless sorceresses who pass along their powers to unborn princesses and leave a bit of themselves behind to act as a chaperone while they're gone. I thought I was doing good just dealing with the fact that my girlfriend's sister – who happens to be the queen, by the way – could create and control ice and snow. This whole magic business is a little new to me."

"But you were raised by trolls!"

"That's different. I mean sure, I guess the idea of living rocks might seem a bit strange. Then again, I'm not exactly clear on all the details of how plants or animals or people manage to pull off the whole life thing either. And since I've grown up around trolls since I was eight, they really didn't seem all that much more unusual to me.

"Besides, Grandpabbie was the only one who really delved into magic, and he considered it a very serious business. He would never use it for something as trivial as entertaining curious youngsters."

"Oh?" Elsa's voice turned frosty, as did her eyes. "So in addition to my sanity, you're now questioning how I used my magic when Anna and I were playing with the palace children?"

"No!" he answered hastily. "No, that's not it at all! I'm only saying that I never really got to see Grandpabbie use his magic all that much. I knew he did, of course. Trolls are pretty sturdy folk, as you would imagine, but they aren't indestructible. Every once in a long while, one of the clan would get injured, and it was usually up to Grandpabbie to heal them. But that was about like someone going to see the doctor. I'd know that they were hurt, and that they went to get treated, and then the next thing I'd see was them coming back again basically good as new. I assumed it was magic, because it seemed like it to me, but it was almost completely a mystery.

"In fact, the most that I ever saw of what Grandpabbie could really do was on the night that I first stumbled into the troll's hollow."

Elsa felt herself deflating. From the mild good humor she'd enjoyed a minute ago through the abrupt defensive anger she'd just gone through, she now found herself remembering that same night, the first time that she had met the trolls as well. Few other things could sober her up quite as quickly.

The look on Kristoff's face showed beyond any doubt that he'd just realized the potential faux pas he had committed, and was wishing fervently that he could somehow take back the careless words. Before he could attempt to undo the damage, though, Elsa spoke instead.

"I sometimes forget how very special Anna is. She's the only person I've ever known who never needed to get used to the idea of magic. From the very beginning, she just accepted it. To her, it seemed as natural as sunshine. Even at the ball after I lost control and created that wall of icy thorns, when everyone else was recoiling in fear, she didn't. Grandpabbie had made certain that she'd forgotten all about the magic, but it still didn't scare her at all.

"I could see it in her face. There was so much hurt there, and worry, and a long-overdue understanding. But if there was any fear, it wasn't of me or my magic. It was _for_ me and how I might react next. While everyone else was running away, including me, she was the one who ran after. She would never let something like a sudden outburst of magical ice stop her."

"To be fair," Kristoff pointed out, "she did kind of lose it a little when we first met Olaf. I mean, she kicked his head clean off and everything. So yeah, I guess everyone has their limits."

The image that formed in Elsa's mind of that first encounter between her sister and her own unintended creation was enough to bring a small smile back to her face. "Well, Olaf does take a bit of getting used to. Even I was caught off guard the first time I saw him walk into the Ice Palace."

Kristoff nodded, then exhaled noisily. "Look, I'm trying my best to keep up with all of this. And whether I understand it all or not, you need to know that I'm not turning back, no matter what may happen. It's just that… Well, I already feel out of place in the castle and at all these royal functions that Anna keeps dragging me to. Now all of a sudden, we're facing this Snow Queen, and I can't help but wonder what I can possibly do to help get Anna back from someone like her."

"I've already told you, Kristoff. I'm going to take care of this. You don't have to do anything."

"Yes, I do!"

His bellow was so loud, Sven actually stumbled, then quickly looked back over his shoulder to try and see if his friend was okay. Elsa felt herself rise off the seat as she involuntarily jumped in surprise. She stared wide-eyed at the man beside her, wondering at the sudden change that had come over him.

His brows had drawn down so low that, for once, they actually weren't hidden behind his shaggy fringe. He was breathing heavily. The mist from his nostrils came puffing out like the smoke from those steam locomotives she had heard about. The way his thick muscles were bunching up, stretching even the heavy fabric of his winter gear, she thought at that moment that he just might be able to give those powerful machines a decent run for their money.

"Kristoff..." she began.

"I need to do something," he ground out through clenched teeth. "I feel like the only reason people put up with me at these high-society events is because they think that I'm some sort of hero for what I did last July. Not you or Anna, of course, but everyone else. And it makes me feel like a fraud, because I barely did anything."

"Now that's just not true!"

"Isn't it? What did I do? I guided Anna up to the North Mountain. I brought her back to the castle gates. And then… I left. She was half-frozen, but I turned and I walked away."

"But you came back."

"And I was too late to do anything! If I'd stayed, maybe I could have kept Hans from locking her in the library. Or at least when she escaped, I could have been there for her. She wouldn't have had to risk her life out on the fjord trying to meet me halfway."

"If she hadn't been out there, then Hans might well have killed me."

"Or, if I'd been there and I'd found out what he'd done, I'd have gotten to him first and beaten that pretty face of his until not even his twelve brothers would have recognized him. As it was, I didn't even get to do that. Not that Anna didn't deserve to give him exactly what he had coming for everything he'd put her through. In the end, though? In the end, I was little more than a coachman. I did nothing!

"I know it doesn't matter to Anna, and as long as she was happy, that was enough for me. If I felt a little awkward around all those important people, it was a small price to pay. But now, Anna's in trouble – real trouble – and I can't just sit by again and do nothing except ferry you all the way up to Lapland and then stand there and watch while you risk your life to save her."

A tremor ran through him from head to toe, and when it had passed, he seemed to sag a little. "I already lost my parents because I was too young to do anything to save them. I will not lose Anna the same way. I'm going to fight for her with everything I have, even if it isn't enough to make any difference. And this time, I will not wait until it's too late. I can't. I have to do... something.

"I love her."

Hesitantly, haltingly, Elsa reached out and laid a hand upon Kristoff's arm, but he did not respond to the gesture. So, in a move that surprised them both, she slid along the bench, stretched her arm across his broad back, and rested her head upon his shoulder.

"This isn't…" he stammered. "This isn't about proving anything to anyone. Not to you, not to Anna, not to anybody back in Arendelle. Not even to myself. Back then, maybe I didn't realize what I was feeling. Maybe my only mistake was in taking too long to see what was right before my eyes.

"But now I know, and that changes everything. I'm going to do this because I can't do anything else. I can't do nothing. I just can't. You could probably stop me if you really wanted to, but I'm begging you, please. Let me help save Anna."

Elsa drew away just far enough to be able to look up at his face. She found him looking back at her, and the sincere entreaty in his eyes said nearly as much as all the words that had come before. That was the moment when, for the very first time, she truly realized that this man might actually care for Anna every bit as much as she did herself.

And so, she nodded. "Fine. When we get to the Snow Queen's palace, we'll go in together. Just promise me you won't do anything rash or reckless or..."

"I won't if you won't."

She answered his hopeful smile with one of her own. "Those have always been Anna's strong suits, not mine."

" _I can come too, right?"_

Once again, Sven was looking back over his shoulder, only this time, his tongue was hanging out eagerly. Elsa actually laughed at the uncanny knack that man and reindeer had for sharing both their thoughts and their voice.

"Yes, Sven. You can come too. All of us together. After all..."

She glanced up at Kristoff, and the proud determination that showed on his face bolstered her courage as well. She straightened, squaring her shoulders the way she'd so often seen her father do right before delivering a speech or an important proclamation.

"After all," she repeated, "that's what families do."

• • •

The company of soldiers had made camp near the confluence of two rivers, neither of which was much used at this time of the year. The winter-bare trees of a nearby forest came down almost to the rocky banks and would provide passable cover should they have need to disappear quickly. Word was that the officers did not seem to think this would be likely.

Their marches had continued to follow the same pattern that they'd begun when they first entered this territory. They traveled mostly by night, making camp and sleeping during the day. So it was that, as the slanting rays of the newly risen sun flashed and flickered across the swiftly moving water, most of the men were either already asleep or else were trying to find a sufficiently comfortable bit of ground upon which to bed down and join their more fortunate comrades. Only those assigned to the first watch remained fully awake and alert, along with a few officers who sat in a tight circle outside a tent, their heads bent low over a map as they tried to gauge their progress over the rugged countryside. They had made good time. One more march, two at the most, would see them at their destination.

There was one other of their number who also had little interest in sleep just then. He was the one who had chosen this particular site for their camp, though his reasons had gone beyond its mere strategic benefits. Those same reasons were why he was not, at that moment, anywhere within the camp itself.

Ragnarr made his way alone up the steep incline, doing his best to keep his breathing slow and regular. He had worked hard to remain fit during the long years of his exile, but that did not change the fact that he was no longer the young man he once had been. It galled him that his body refused to respond with quite the same speed or vigor that it had known in the past. Still, he remained a man to be reckoned with, enough that few ever considered challenging him. Those that did learned a valuable lesson in respecting their elders. Only after walking away from the crowds that inevitably gathered around such a spectacle would Ragnarr allow himself the luxury of a wince at bruises that his older muscles could no longer shrug off like they used to.

He was pleased, then, when he finally reached the broad summit and found that he needed only a single deep breath to recover from the prolonged hike. All the same, he remained standing at the top of the trail for a while longer, surveying a scene that was simultaneously familiar and yet decidedly different from how he last remembered it.

The hill was something of an anomaly, encircled as it was by much taller mountains on nearly all sides. In warmer months, it would be covered with thick, springy grass, the vibrant green standing in sharp contrast to the slate gray of the rocky slopes that surrounded it. Now, in the midst of this stubborn winter, it actually seemed less out of place. Its cloak of white blended in with the nearby snowcaps, so that it looked more like a small and overlooked sibling of its larger and more intimidating relatives.

The two rivers met at its base, forming a dramatic Y out of both their water and of the valleys that they carved. Standing upon this hilltop, you could look in three different directions and see the narrow channels winding their way through the bare bones of the earth. It was a breathtaking view, one that he had often taken the opportunity to enjoy back in his heyday.

But that had been a lifetime ago… and the life had not been his.

At last, he walked fully out onto the crest of the hill, then made his way off to one side until he stood facing one of the two incoming rivers. It was not the water that drew his eye, however, nor the majestic peaks between which it made its bed. Instead, he gazed fixedly at a large stone that had been carefully placed directly in-line with the straightest stretch of the river, just before it bent to curve around the foot of the hill.

Marguerite had loved this place. She had told him on more than one occasion that it was her favorite spot in the entire kingdom. Whenever she'd thought she could get away with it, she would wheedle him unceasingly until he finally agreed to bring her here for a picnic. After Primrose had grown old enough, they'd often brought her along too – although even then, they'd sometimes left her with her nanny and had made the trip on their own. Either way, those picnics had always been small celebrations of the unexpectedly pleasant surprises that life could drop into your lap, even when you were fearing the worst.

Theirs had been an arranged marriage, negotiated for the political benefit of their respective kingdoms. They'd only met for the first time a scant six months before the wedding was to take place, and there had been much trepidation within both courts.

Even back then, Ragnarr had already earned a reputation for being quick to anger and easy to offend. He had inherited his father's inability to suffer fools quietly. Unfortunately, being a prince and a rather spoiled one at that, he had grown up rarely being corrected by either courtiers or his parents. Therefore, he had arrived at what was perhaps an inevitable conclusion: if he was always right, then anybody else who disagreed with him must be wrong, and they would have to be fools not to recognize that. The king and queen had never gotten around to properly disabusing him of this notion, and no one else had dared to make the attempt. So it was that, as the time drew near for the first meeting between Prince Ragnarr and Princess Marguerite, breaths were held in each of their kingdoms.

What few had realized, however, was that Marguerite had mastered at a remarkably young age one of the most subtle and coveted of the diplomatic arts. She possessed a natural talent for not only convincing others of the wisdom in her ideas, but for doing so in such a way that they then believed those very ideas had in fact been theirs all along. That, coupled with her lilting voice and delicate beauty, had led many even among her own kin to underestimate her on multiple occasions. Rarely, though, did any one person make the mistake of crossing her twice. Once you had seen the inner fires that she so carefully kept hidden, you would not willingly choose to be burned by them again.

Ragnarr had been utterly defenseless against her.

Even more surprising had been the way that the quiet princess quickly took to this strident and surly man. No one was ever able to convincingly explain what she saw in Ragnarr. Whenever those closest to her inquired about it, her answer was always a coy smile and an enigmatic statement that the heart would love whom it would.

Ragnarr had never asked. Given the nature of their betrothal, he had anticipated a more distant and businesslike relationship, each largely pursuing their own interests and coming together only as needed for appearances and for the sake of producing an heir. That, in so little time, he had become thoroughly besotted by Marguerite's charms surprised him as much as it did most others, and quite possibly more. More to the point, he could not for the life of him understand why she seemed to genuinely return his affections.

And yet, though none dared doubt the man's courage, the answer to that question was one that secretly terrified him. He feared that, if she ever were made to examine her reasons too closely, she might realize that she had made a grave error. He could not bear the thought of losing her in such a fashion – or in any other fashion, for that matter – and so he was content to allow her reasons to remain her own.

At the time, he had been unable to conceive of the possibility that he might ever care for another the way he did for his Marguerite. This did not change even when they'd received word that she was with child. For as long as Ragnarr could remember, his father had been but a distant presence in his life, demonstrating little personal interest in his son. His mother had tried to compensate by doting upon him and giving him nearly everything he asked for, but the lack of a firm authority figure was almost certainly responsible for the worst of his personality problems that continued unchecked into manhood. With no other basis for comparison, Ragnarr had simply assumed that such was the role of a father, and so had planned to deal with this new child in much the same way.

It would be romantic to say that this changed from the day that Primrose entered the world, but it was not quite that simple. The birth had been difficult, and Marguerite remained bedridden for many weeks thereafter. Ragnarr would have been content to stay by his wife's side and let the nannies and wet nurse see to the child, but the new mother demanded every day to be allowed to hold her daughter. The physician soon relented, deciding that the separation was causing his patient far greater trauma than the presence of the newborn babe possibly could.

The look of euphoria that had come to his wife's face when Primrose was laid in the crook of her arm took the first chink out of Ragnarr's armor. Anything that could bring his beloved such joy had to be worthy of additional consideration.

Marguerite was still weak from the efforts of labor and slept often to regain her strength. Yet she did not want to be parted from her child any more than was absolutely necessary, and her daughter was always the first thing she asked for when she awoke. So as often as not, Ragnarr waited until he was certain that she was asleep, with a contented smile upon her face that was nearly always turned toward her baby girl. Only then would he gently lift his firstborn into his own arms, holding and quietly soothing her lest her cries disturb her mother's dreams, ready to return her the moment she was called for.

And as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, without ever quite realizing it, Ragnarr found that there was indeed more than enough room in his heart for a second love that was very nearly the equal of his first. Primrose grew more quickly than he could ever have imagined, and ever did she seem to become more like her mother in both looks and temperament, which pleased the prince to no end.

When his daughter had been but three years old, her grandfather had taken ill of a sudden respiratory infection. The physician did what he could, but the king's time had come. Ragnarr observed all the proper forms and functions of mourning, even though he could not quite bring himself to feel much in the way of actual loss. Preparations began immediately after the funeral and, within a matter of weeks, the kingdom no longer had a prince. King Ragnarr took up the crown.

This did little to change the fact that the first six years of Primrose's life were the happiest that Ragnarr had ever known, and this generally held true for the castle at large as well. While the new king's temper still remained, Queen Marguerite's powers of gentle persuasion managed to keep them mostly at bay. Meanwhile, the wide-eyed excitement of the young princess was infectious, making smiles more common among the staff and servants than they had been for many a year.

Then had come the day when Ragnarr made a decision that ultimately changed his world forever.

He had never been able to refuse his wife – though in truth, she rarely asked for much and the few things she did want were seldom extravagant. Sometimes he could put her off for a while, but they both knew that he would almost certainly give in to her eventually. So when she finally broached the subject of wanting a second child, there had been little doubt that she would get her way, sooner or later.

Ragnarr would have preferred later. The complications surrounding her first birth were still fresh in his memory, even if the joys of their daughter had mostly driven them from hers. Still, she would not be denied. For all that he had given her, she wished to give him something in return: a son to one day take his place upon the throne. He insisted that she had already given him more than she could possibly know, but she had made up her mind. She'd gone so far as to suggest a name for the new prince, ignoring the fact that he had yet to even be conceived. He had said nothing at the time, but such presumption left him ill at ease. It seemed to be tempting fate.

Now, back upon the hilltop, he pressed his hand against the surface of the stone, feeling the grooves of the runes that had been carved into its smooth surface. And though they were obscured by his thick fingers, he did not to need to see them to know exactly what the two short lines said.

 _Marguerite_ _Q_ _ueen. She died in childbirth._

There had been cemeteries on the outskirts of the capital, of course. The mortal remains of a number of Arendelle's former rulers could be found resting there. Not all of them, though. No, definitely not all of them.

They had buried her here in this place that she'd loved so much. The exact spot had been chosen because the river below stretched away in the direction of her native kingdom. After their picnics, she had often stood here and looked fondly back toward her childhood home. Fondly, but seldom longingly. She had made Arendelle her new home, and she had been happy here for the all-too-brief time they had shared together.

Ragnarr spoke no words aloud. The visits he had made to his wife's grave back in the day had been similarly quiet. He was not, as a rule, a sentimental man. That he came at all was a testament to the immense impact she'd had upon his life, and even this had been denied to him for more than twenty years. Now that he had returned, there'd been no question of passing this place by without paying his silent respects to the woman he had loved.

He stood there for a long while. The sun slowly rose behind him, imparting some scant warmth to the stone beneath his hand. A trove of memories flashed briefly through his mind like the precious gems they were. As a treasure, they were made all the more valuable by their scarcity. There should have been so many more.

At last, he bowed his head. Then turning, he strode away from the bittersweet reminder of the happiness he had once known.

He did not, however, return to the path that he had taken on his ascent to this height. Instead, he crossed the crown until he was facing the river that flowed away from this place, made larger by the merging of its two tributaries. Somewhere beyond the obscuring mountains, it would empty out into a broad fjord, beside whose banks nestled Arendelle's capital city. But here, positioned so as to overlook the waters that eventually flowed past the castle, two additional standing stones had been erected. Ragnarr's eyes were drawn to the inscription of the one on the left.

 _Idun Queen. She died in the sea._

That the kingdom should have lost a queen of such grace and noble beauty as his Marguerite had been a tragedy beyond belief. That it should then gain another nearly her equal only to see her life also come to such a dreadful and untimely end… Well, perhaps that was a penance. A terrible one, to be sure, and one that she had certainly not brought upon herself.

Idun had first come to the palace several years before Ragnarr's rule had ended, though she had been using a different name at the time. He never had learned why, nor what had eventually caused her to return again to the name she had been given at birth. Nevertheless, he had found her to be a delightful and charming young woman.

In both appearance and bearing, she had reminded him not only of his wife but also his daughter. By that time, Primrose had been several years wed to the Crown Prince of Corona, so his opportunities to see her had become quite limited. Yet, with the arrival of this newcomer, it had nearly been like the years had rolled back. He'd invited her to come to the castle whenever she wished, and had quickly grown to look forward to her visits.

When news of her death had reached him in exile, he had grieved. Though he had been fortunate enough to know three such women in his life, he had not found their equal anywhere else in his travels. He considered the world a poorer place now that two of them had gone.

With the reverence and respect due to one who had been the embodiment of all queenly ideals, Ragnarr bowed deeply toward the cenotaph. He very much regretted that he had not been given more time to know the woman whose life it represented. That was yet another in the long line of things that had been unjustly denied to him. At least now, he'd finally been given the opportunity to bid her a proper farewell. It hardly seemed fair recompense.

His business thus concluded, Ragnarr turned and made his way back to the trail of footprints that showed where he had first climbed the hill. As he began his descent, he spared neither glance nor thought for the third and final marker that stood atop the hill beside Idun's. He felt no need to even acknowledge its presence. After all, it was a monument to one whose very birth had cost him his beloved wife, whose childhood had turned his own daughter against him, and whose coming-of-age had stripped him of his crown and kingdom. Why ever should he care about the life of a man who had so thoroughly ruined his own?

 _Agdar King. He died in the sea._

As far as Ragnarr was concerned, his son had been dead long before the waves had risen up to claim him.


	12. The Distance Between

Obtaining a permanent position on the staff of Arendelle castle was not easy. Though Queen Elsa might be less demanding than some of her predecessors, those in the royal employ took considerable pride in their service to the crown. They all knew the high standards that were expected of them, they came prepared to work hard to meet them, and generally did not look kindly upon any of their number who failed to pull their own weight. Those who oversaw the various divisions of labor within the royal household always sought to hire only the best. After all, anything less than a smoothly-running, well-kept castle would be a disgrace to the entire kingdom.

This also held for the royal stables, naturally… and that was proving to be a very fortunate thing.

"Mr. Mikkelsen? Oof. Uh, Mr. Mikkelsen?"

"Hey, Josef! Wake up over there, or the lad's going to end up dropping that saddle on your foot!"

The stablemaster turned, a far-off look on his face before he finally managed to drag his focus onto the boy. The youngster appeared to be about ten years of age, though it was hard to say for certain. Such details became difficult to guess when half of the person in question, and notably a good bit of his head, was lost behind a mass of leather.

"Oh, sorry. Here, let me get that for you." Josef lifted the saddle out of the boy's arms. It wasn't child-sized either, but rather a full working saddle made for an adult horse and rider. Hoisting it up onto his shoulder to help support the weight, he considered the lad again now that more of him had become visible.

"I see your father has started putting you to work now, eh, Colin?"

The boy grinned. "He lets me help out sometimes. Not with the real work yet, but I'm getting a lot better with my own little projects, so maybe soon! I still run errands for him, though. You know, fetch supplies, tools, whatever. Sometimes I make deliveries, too." He glanced up at the heavy saddle. "Not usually one as big as that, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle." His grin turned a bit smug as he puffed out his chest at this manly accomplishment.

"I probably would never have been asked to lug something like that all the way to the castle normally, but you know how things have been the last few days. Nobody knows what to make of what happened. All the grownups spend as much time talking about it as working, so nothing's getting done as quickly as it should. When a customer comes to collect work they paid for, though, it's funny how they're all business! So..."

Colin shrugged, then winced as some muscle or other protested its recent burden. He began swinging his arms broadly back and forth, but tried to disguise the attempt at stretching out the kinks by instead pretending to casually inspect the stables.

"Looks like everything's running smoothly here, though! I bet Papa would love to know your secret."

 _So would I,_ thought Josef. What he actually said was, "How much do I owe you?"

The boy gave Josef a strange look, as though he'd just started speaking with an unintelligible foreign accent. "You already paid for it, remember? Said you trusted us enough by now to know that we'd do the work right." Colin's eyes narrowed. "Are you feeling okay, Mr. Mikkelsen?"

"Fine, fine," Josef replied distractedly as he fished around in his trouser pocket with his free hand. Pulling out a handful of coins, he used his thumb to push them around until he'd isolated a few shiny silver ones, which he then handed to the boy. "A few skillings just for you then, for the fine work you did with the delivery."

"Thanks!" Grinning again, Colin shoved the tip deep into one of his own pockets. "Maybe I'll get lucky and Papa will get backed up like this more often."

The stablemaster tried to return a smile of his own, but it didn't quite come out right. Indeed, it ended up being little more than a twitch of his lips and a strained tightness around his eyes.

"You sure you're alright, Mr. Mikkelsen?"

Josef managed a nod. "Of course I am. But I think you'd best be heading back now, Colin. Your father may need more of your help yet before the day's done, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to miss out on the chance to maybe earn a few more skillings on the side. Oh, and be sure to give him my thanks for his usual fine work."

"Will do! And thank you for the business!" He jangled the coins in his pocket. Then, with a smile and a wave, he turned and took off at a run. He was out of the nearest door before Josef had even finished putting the rest of his money away again.

Shifting the brand new saddle to a slightly more comfortable position, he carried it back to the cleanest corner of the stables where they usually did the work of treating and mending various bits of tack. Though he might feel comfortable adjusting stirrups and fixing worn bridles, he knew enough to leave the task of building an actual saddle to those who specialized in the craft. Still, he liked to give them a thorough inspection before putting them into use. If nothing else, it gave him the chance to admire and appreciate the workmanship. Sometimes, he even learned a thing or two that helped with his own far simpler work. So, using one foot to tug a tall stool out from beneath the workbench, he sat down and began to examine the fine detailing that had been meticulously worked into the leather.

The next thing he knew, there was a hand waving back and forth in front of his face.

"Hey, Josef! You in there?"

Startled by the sudden interruption, he looked up. "Saul? What is it? What's the problem?"

"You tell me," the other man said, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow.

Saul was about ten years older than Josef. If fact, before Josef had come on board, he'd been the youngest stablehand working at the castle, having started just a year or two before the gates had closed. Now that they'd reopened and the stables were fully staffed once again, he had become one of the trusted "old hands" around the place, a fact that Josef enjoyed needling him about even as he relied on him to keep an eye on the youngsters still learning their trade.

"No problem here," Josef answered. "You're the one who came over and broke my concentration. I barely had a chance to start looking at this saddle before you just… What?" The concerned expression being directed his way was more than a little disconcerting. Saul was rubbing the stubble on his chin, brows drawn together but otherwise looking as though he was trying to decide whether his boss was simply baiting him again for the umpteenth time.

"Um, not sure how to tell you this, but you been sitting there, staring at that thing 'n' barely moving a muscle, for a good fifteen minutes."

Josef blinked, glanced down at the saddle, then back up at Saul. "Fifteen minutes?"

Saul shrugged. "Mighta been twenty."

The two stared at each other for a few silent seconds. Then Josef ran a calloused hand down his suddenly weary face.

"You feeling alright, chief?"

 _That seems to be a popular question today,_ Josef thought. _Maybe I ought to have a better answer._

"I haven't been sleeping well lately," he admitted. It didn't seem necessary to specify when that had started, considering that the obvious answer was the right one. At least Saul seemed to have guessed it readily enough. He nodded his understanding.

"Yeah, we're all worried for the princess, but you've been closer to her than most of us. 'S no wonder you've been so distracted these last few days."

"No, I…" Josef's natural instinct was to argue that he would never allow such a thing to interfere with his duties. But his conscience caught up to the rest of the words before they could leave his mouth, sternly forcing them into retreat. Instead, he sighed.

"Fine. I suppose you're right. I guess I have been a little off lately." Then it dawned on him that he'd been found completely oblivious to the world twice in the last hour, and a sense of guilt fell heavily upon him. "Um, just how bad have I been, really?"

Saul reached up and scratched the back of his neck, looking decidedly uncomfortable. It was obvious that he would have preferred to find some way to avoid answering the question, but was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that an honest answer would be for the best. Finally, he gave in and said, "Been almost asleep on your feet a couple of times now, I s'pose. We all pretty much guessed what was botherin' you. Just nobody wanted to say much about it. Figured you had the right to be outta sorts, considering. So we just quietly took care of what slipped through the cracks."

Josef winced. "And how big were those cracks?"

"Oh, nothin' serious. Just little things, mostly. A few chores that you normally insist on doing yourself 'cause you want to make sure that they're always done right. Funny thing. Turns out you ain't the only one who can do them after all." Saul smiled to help relieve any sting that the words might otherwise have carried. The snort he got back might have been intended as a self-deprecating laugh, but it was difficult to be sure.

"Sorry," Josef said, shaking his head. "And thanks. Guess I've been dropping the ball more than I realized. You shouldn't have to cover for my mistakes."

"Eh, more misses than mistakes – things you just forgot 'bout 'cause you had more important stuff on your mind. We've all done it, and you've covered for the rest of us often enough. Trust me, nobody minded one bit. Just been getting a mite concerned is all. Not used to seeing you like this."

"Neither am I. I just..." Josef struggled to find the words for the feelings and fears that had been plaguing him. It wasn't easy, because he didn't talk about such personal matters very often, and never to his fellow stable workers.

"When I started here eight years ago, I was only looking for a good job. I knew that the castle employed some of the best horse handlers around, so I figured if I could get on, I might learn a thing or two. If I was lucky, maybe I'd even make some new friends while I was at it.

"I just never expected that one of them would turn out to be Princess Anna."

"She certainly took a likin' to you quickly enough!" Saul smiled again as he recalled the princess's youthful infatuation with the first new hire the castle had then seen in years. His expression soon grew more serious, however, when his teasing reminder failed to earn him the annoyed and embarrassed glare that was Josef's usual response. Instead, Josef lowered his head so that he once again appeared to be inspecting the new saddle.

"I hope she's okay, Saul. I can't stop worrying for her. I know she's no pushover and can usually take care of herself, but... Well, if anything happens to her, I'll..."

Saul considered his troubled friend. He would have liked to say something reassuring, something that might ease the concerns that were clearly gnawing at the man. Nothing came to mind that seemed likely to make anything any better, though. He could make empty promises – _She'll be fine, you'll see_ – except that they both knew that there were no such guarantees. He could try to sympathize – _Yeah, I know how you feel_ – except that he'd never been as close to the princess as Josef had been and, though he might be feeling the same general unease as everyone else in the kingdom, he'd so far been lucky enough never to have anyone he truly cared about put into such unknown danger. Besides, words had never exactly been his specialty. He'd always been better at expressing himself through his actions.

And so, he acted.

Taking a step forward, he grabbed hold of the saddle and lifted it out from beneath Josef's eyes. The stablemaster started, then reached out to try to snatch it back, but Saul swung it around and out of his reach.

"Why don't you take some time off, chief?" he suggested. "We can hold down the fort without you for a spell. Go do something that'll take your mind off things. Would do you good."

"That's what work is for," Josef countered.

"Work don't seem to be working too well, from where I'm standing."

Josef threw up his hands. "What do you want me to do, Saul? Do you think a little change of scenery is going to make me stop worrying? Because I can tell you right now, it won't."

"Maybe not. But you say you haven't been sleeping well. So take a nap. Go home, crawl into bed, try to catch up a bit."

"Ah, I'm never going to get to sleep this time of day."

"Then go for a hike up the mountains! Chop some wood for your fire... and the neighbor's fire, and however many others it takes! Go to the pub and drink yourself into a stupor, then stumble home and sleep it off. Stables'll still be here once you sober up again, and we'll manage 'til then."

Josef shook his head. "It wouldn't help. I think we both know sleep isn't the real problem."

"Yeah, well, neither of us can do much about the rest of it, can we? Snow queens and magic and all that, that's beyond the likes of me 'n' you. But hard work, a pint o' beer, and a good night's sleep – that's somethin' I can speak to. If sleep's hard to come by, and work ain't doin' the trick, then it seems to me the time has come to consider other options."

"Look, I'll be fine. Maybe I won't be quite as sharp as usual, but I'll manage. Now just give me back the saddle and let me get back to work."

Saul frowned. For a second, he wavered and began to swing the saddle back around. Then he stopped, thought better of it, and drew back once again.

"Nah. You're at least taking the rest of the day off. Doctor's orders."

"You're no doctor. And for that matter, you're not even my boss. You're supposed to do what I tell you, not the other way around."

"True 'nuff, and any other day, I'd be fine with that arrangement. Just not today. Now, seeing as I ain't the boss, I can't make you leave. But what I can do is talk to all the other lads and make sure that they know where things stand. Between the lot of us, I'm thinkin' we can make pretty well sure that there isn't a lick of work that reaches you 'fore one of us has taken care of it first.

"So you can sit here stewing about it, waiting to see how long we can keep up our end. Course, you know better than most what these stubborn fellas can do once they get their minds set. Or you could set a proper example by not letting your pride trip up your good sense.

"Just one day. Get out, clear your head. Find some lout out there who's askin' for a good thrashing and give it to him. Or find yourself a nice girl and lift up her heels this evenin'. Borrow a horse and go for a ride. Read a book, practice needlepoint, I don't care. But burying yourself in your work ain't gonna do the trick when you can't even keep your attention to it. So let the rest of us worry about that, and you worry about yourself for a bit. And the princess too, if that's what you need to do."

Josef stared hard at the other man, who returned the look every bit as steadily until, at last, Josef gave in with a faint chuckle.

"Alright, fine. You win! One day. I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with myself for the next few hours, but just about anything has to be better than sitting here arguing with your ugly mug for even one minute more."

"I'm sure my missus would agree with you on that," Saul replied with a wink.

Josef rose to his feet with a sound that fell somewhere between a groan and a sigh. He gave Saul a friendly cuff on the shoulder as he began to walk past, then paused and rested his hand upon the exact same spot.

"Thank you," he said. "You're a smug, stubborn, meddlesome pain in my neck. But you're also a good friend. I owe you one."

Saul raised his eyebrows warily. "Yeah, but is it a favor you owe me, or payback?"

"I haven't decided yet." Josef clapped the shoulder one more time, then walked off with a wave.

• • •

Josef knew he should probably have walked straight out of the castle, tried to put some distance between himself and the source of the memories that were causing him so much grief. And yet, he couldn't bring himself to leave right away. Instead, his feet carried him up the nearest stairs and onto the elevated walkway that ran just inside the castle walls. The pace he set could have been called a stroll but for the fact that the word usually implied a lighter heart than he had just then.

He took the back way, away from the gates and the town. Instead, as he peered out through the gap between wall and sheltering canopy, the fjord dominated his view. Though he had pulled on his coat before leaving the stables, the winter wind barely seemed to notice. Racing down the mountains and across the frigid waters, it seemed to pass not just through his clothing but right through his very body as well. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to hold in the heat, but even this wasn't terribly effective.

Of course, if all he'd wanted to do was to get where he was going, he could have stayed down low, within the relative comfort provided by the castle's solid stonework. But he had wanted to take this path. He'd wanted to see the world from this angle. It was, after all, part of what he'd been spending so much time dwelling on of late.

The bulk of the palace passed by on his left, and he glanced away from the wind-roughened waters to look instead upon the royal gardens. Beneath the thick blanket of snow, they were almost unrecognizable. There was no telling where the dormant flower beds lay or where the meandering paths ran between them. Here and there, he could make out the top of a bench poking out from amid all the white. In other places, fine traceries of blackish-brown showed where the snow had sifted through the bare branches of low hedges without finding enough surface upon which to properly settle.

Only the trees stood as unmistakable markers. Leafless though they might be, they were too much for the snow to wholly swallow. Not that it didn't try. The broader the branches, the thicker the snow lay piled upon them. Yet beneath that pristine smoothness, coarse bark could still be seen. It was like each tree was committing a small act of defiance to the winter. _You might have the sky,_ they seemed to say to the snow, _but you can only fall. We trees, though, we climb a little higher every year. If not for us, you would be down there, on the ground. You aim for the earth. We reach for the heavens. Which of us is greater?_

He never had heard the tale properly told of the time when a young Anna's dress had snagged on the branches of one of those trees. He knew that she'd loved climbing them, despite or perhaps because of her nanny's insistence that it was simply improper behavior for a young princess. More than once, he'd been teased with what had sounded like an endlessly amusing tale of one such climb that had apparently gone very wrong. Somehow, though, one thing or another (including Anna herself) had always intervened to keep that from happening.

In truth, he'd nearly forgotten about it entirely, but the sight of the gardens and the direction of his thoughts had unexpectedly brought it back to mind. He'd never really minded before that he hadn't learned the rest of the story, but now, it seemed terribly important.

That Anna was in the clutches of a woman with powers like her sister's but with none of the compassion chilled him even worse than the bitter winds. And yet, that wasn't what his mind was now stubbornly dwelling upon. Despite the fact that his inability to focus had directly led to this leave from the stables, he now found himself latching inexorably on to one ridiculous thought.

He should have cajoled the princess into telling him what had happened on that day when a cat had somehow stolen into the gardens and she had chased it up the big oak tree. He needed to know so badly, he felt it like an ache in his chest. There were any number of stories about her childhood that he'd never heard, but right then, by not knowing this particular one, he felt that he had somehow let her down. He felt like he'd failed her as a friend by not knowing her as well as he should have. If anything happened to her, if he never heard the rest of the tale, then how would he ever be able to make that right?

It was irrational, but he couldn't help it. He wanted so badly to be able to do… something. He wished he could have gone along on the rescue mission, but all he'd actually been able to do was see the reindeer securely harnessed to the sleigh. Now he was stuck here, forced by necessity to go through the motions of his job as if it was just an ordinary day, even though everyone knew that it wasn't. His helplessness was eating him up inside and was now beginning to manifest itself as a dreadful guilt about the most trivial of things. Because really, there wasn't anything that he could do for Anna, and if he couldn't help, then by heaven, he was at least going to feel well and truly miserable about it.

The gardens disappeared as his course led him around the corner of the castle, through the tallest and broadest of the many towers that lined the outer wall. When he walked out the other side, he forced himself to look away from the palace grounds, instead turning back to the steel-gray waters that rose and fell sluggishly off to his right. One lone ship was visible upon the fjord. Having left the harbor mouth, it was now making its ponderous way out toward the open waters, bound for who-knew-where and full of other people who were also carrying on with their lives despite the state of disarray they were leaving behind in Arendelle.

A gust of wind cut across the vessel's course, briefly snagging the flag atop the mainmast and snapping it straight out to one side. Josef caught a glimpse of three thick bars – blue, white, and red – and the emptiness behind his breastbone changed somewhat. It didn't exactly lessen, nor did it grow any greater. If he'd been forced to describe it, he might have said that it felt as though it had turned sideways, though that was a poor explanation. Like Saul, words were not his particular gift.

Still, the sight of the French standard had at least been enough to dislodge some of the guilty thoughts that had been so painfully plaguing him. Now, beside the image of the absent princess that had been keeping him company for days, another face swam into view.

Marie had been a friend to Anna years before he had first met either of them. The daughter of a seasoned harbormaster, she and her family had come to Arendelle when King Agdar had extended an offer to her father to take on the job of overseeing the workings of the busy port. The castle gates had already been closed for a year by then, but the king had nevertheless invited them inside upon their arrival. Anton's exceptional reputation had by that point already convinced His Majesty that this was the best man for the job. All he had to do was convince Anton of the same.

Maybe it had only been loneliness at first, but Anna had jumped at the chance to spend some time with a new playmate, even if just for the day. Yet the queen had seen just how happy those few hours had made her daughter. So once Anton had accepted the position, that single day had turned into many, and Marie became one of the few people who, though not on the palace staff, were nevertheless allowed to visit the castle whenever they wished.

Josef had only met Marie some four years later when she and her family had traveled from Paris for a visit. They'd been forced to return to France after a terrible accident had shattered the girl's legs, and despite the efforts of one of Europe's most skilled surgeons, she had arrived back in Arendelle in a wheelchair. By then, Anna had already befriended Josef, so the queen had come to him with a request to assist Marie in getting around the castle. Naturally, he had agreed to help.

That was how his position working in the stables had earned him a second, entirely unlooked-for young friend.

He had last seen Marie six months earlier when she had attended Queen Elsa's coronation. At nineteen, she had grown into a fine and lovely woman who, despite the unfair hand life had dealt her, somehow still remained incredibly bright and cheerful. She gave all the credit for this to the support she received from her family and friends – including Anna, who had continued to exchange letters with her as often as she possibly could.

Even Josef had sent a few halting notes of his own to her over the years, though they always seemed to him to be much too short and lacking anything of real consequence. All the same, Marie had never failed to write back and thank him for his kind words, letting him know how much it meant that he was still thinking about her after so much time. Just like he was thinking about her now.

For her sake, he was glad that she was not in Arendelle. She had returned to France shortly after the coronation to finish her last year at the _Conservatoire de Paris_ where she was completing her studies of the violin. Had she been here for Anna's abduction, Josef was certain it would have dismayed her to no end.

On the other hand, her absence only served to increase his own distress. He'd been wrestling with himself as to whether or not he ought to write to her and tell her about what had happened, but so far, he had decided against it. With luck, Anna would be back before such a letter could even reach Paris, and then Marie would end up needlessly worrying for weeks while she waited for more news to arrive. What good would that accomplish?

And yet, should Anna fail to make it back safely for whatever reason, he knew it would be his duty to inform Marie. The mere thought of having to compose such a letter made him feel ill. He had no idea how he could possibly find the words to describe such a tragedy face-to-face, let alone by putting pen to paper. No letter he could ever hope to write would provide adequate comfort should the worst come to pass. He would much rather be there for her. His penmanship might be woefully lacking, but he knew that he could at least provide a strong shoulder for her to cry on.

He swore at himself, the obscenity popping out as a cloud of misty air. This brooding wasn't doing anyone any good. Letting himself dwell on every awful thing that could possibly go wrong was what had gotten him kicked out of the stables in the first place. He needed to stay positive. After all, Queen Elsa herself had gone off after her sister. There was no one else in all of Arendelle who stood a better chance at getting Anna back.

Plus, she had taken that Bjorgman fellow with her who, by all accounts, was one of the most experienced mountaineers the kingdom had to offer. They'd spoken together a few times, since the ice harvester often spent a good bit of time in the stables looking after his reindeer. Josef fancied himself a decent judge of character, and that man seemed as solid as a rock. Besides, he had a way with the horses, all of whom had quickly taken a liking to him. As far as Josef was concerned, that was an even better indicator of someone who could be trusted. That was fortunate, because he now had no choice but to trust that the unlikely pair would be able to rescue Princess Anna and bring her safely home.

Passing through the turret at the next corner of the wall, he finally arrived at the spot that he only then realized he'd been aiming for. Through the gap between parapet and roof, he looked out at the elevated stone path that extended out from the castle. Dropping down a flight of stairs, it continued across the water until it finally reached a narrow tower, the uppermost extent of which was completely encased by large panes of glass.

Back during that visit when he had first met Marie, he had conspired with Anna to carry her out to the lighthouse. From there, they had all watched the ships passing in and out of the harbor, as well as the buzz of activity by the docks that never seemed to stop regardless of how many or how few boats might be berthed along the quay. And as they'd watched, Josef had retold a story that he'd once heard from a group of drunken sailors about a trip they had made down the Tana River deep into Lapland.

Their account of how the river had instantly frozen solid in the middle of summer had seemed to him then like little more than a tall tale. It had the same air about it as did so many other improbable ghost stories. Enough sailors had stayed at the inn where he had apprenticed as a lad that he'd heard all sorts of fanciful tales filled with mermaids, sea monsters, and other inexplicable oddities that had more rum than reality about them. That had been all well and proper; as the saying went, one should never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Now, though, he was being forced to consider that there might be more truth to be found at the bottom of a mug of ale than he had ever let himself imagine.

His eyes drifted away from the lighthouse, across the opening at the mouth of the harbor, and beyond that to the mountains and the broad waters that stretched away northward. Somewhere in that direction, hidden by distance and the far horizon, a desperate pursuit was afoot. Its outcome might very well change the course of the kingdom, not to mention the life of one small man who just happened to work in the royal stables.

 _God speed, Your Majesty._ He sent his hopes and prayers to join in the chase, unsure how much difference they could possibly make. Still, they were all he could give at the moment, so he gave all that he had. _Bring our princess home. And Anna, stay safe. I'll look after Adelen for you while you're gone, but you know how he gets when you go too long between rides. You wouldn't want him to get lonely, would you? Come back soon. We're all here, waiting for you._

He stood there until the cold penetrated so completely through his heavy woolen clothes that he could no longer keep from shivering, and even then, he delayed leaving a while longer. Finally, though, he turned and directed his feet to the nearest stairway just a short distance away. Once down off the ramparts, he began the slow trudge through the thick snow that lay upon the gardens.

He realized now that Saul had been right about one thing at least. Turning inward and keeping to himself was not getting him anywhere. In fact, it only left him feeling even more lonely and miserable. So maybe it was time he tried the opposite approach. Maybe what he needed was a rowdy ruckus, a plate of simple food, and a stout drink to warm his insides. And if, amid that crowded press of people, he might chance to find a companion who could help pull his mind away from the bleak thoughts that kept dragging it down, who could remind him of the happier moments and the things that made life worth living… well then, so much the better.

A few minutes later, he paused in the doorway and looked around. The large room was filled with the sounds of people calling out to one another, some serious and others laughing. His stomach rumbled and his mouth watered as the delightful aroma of freshly baked bread tickled the inside of his nose. Glass and mugs clinked together, utensils scraped across dishes, and the heat from the roaring fire finally began to drive the chill from his bones.

"Hello there, Josef! Something I can get for you?"

Josef drew in a deep breath, letting it all wash over him. Then he smiled at the friendly woman who stood before him, wiping her hands in her apron. "A plate of something warm," he said, "a mug of something thick, and – if you aren't too busy – I wouldn't mind a few minutes of your time either."

She smiled back. "I think I can manage all of that. Why don't you have a seat over there, and I'll see what I can do. Shouldn't take but a minute." Then she bustled off while he made his way over to the small corner table she had indicated. True to her word, he hadn't been waiting long at all before she returned with a dish of thick, steaming stew, a crusty dinner roll, and a tankard of mead, all of which he accepted gratefully.

"So," she said, dusting off another chair with her dish towel before sitting down next to him, "what brings you down here at this time of day?"

"Too much time out in the cold," he said around a bite of bread, "and too much time alone. Thought a bit of company might help."

She eyed him appraisingly. "Well then, I'd say you've come to the right place. I'm always happy to sit down for a little chat with an appreciative customer."

He didn't answer right away, as he was too busy sucking in air around a bite of stew that had turned out to be even hotter than he'd expected. But even after he'd washed it down with a gulp of mead, he simply stared wordlessly down at his plate, idly pushing the chunks of meat and vegetable around with his spoon.

"You're worried about her too, aren't you?"

He looked up then into her sympathetic eyes. Her hand had reached across the table and was now resting gently atop his own. Though his mouth was empty, he swallowed before nodding.

"So am I, dear. So am I."

They spent the next hour sitting quietly together in the corner, sharing their memories of a spunky, redheaded princess. They laughed as often as not, and they each found their hearts a little lighter for it. They spoke of their fears too, though those somehow felt less oppressive once they realized that they both bore the same burden. Josef talked freely, which was completely out of character for him. Yet right then and there, he didn't think he could have done anything else.

At last, his meal long since finished, Josef pushed away from the table and stood. "Well, I've kept you long enough. I ought to be going. I'm sure you have far more important things to be seeing to, after all."

"Nonsense. You come back again any time you feel the need, understand? I think the chance to talk does me as much good as it does you."

He nodded, then bent forward and kissed her lightly upon the cheek. "Thank you, Gerda."

Her cheeks a little red, she swatted at him with her towel. "Now don't you go getting like that. We friends of the royal family need to stick together. Heaven knows they give us more to fret about than any one of us could handle on our own. I think it's a knack they got from their parents."

Josef chuckled, gave the head cook a small bow, then turned and left the kitchens. He made his way out of the palace, across the courtyard, and through the castle gates. And though his thoughts continued to stray to Anna, they now lingered at least as much on the good times past as the potential troubles that still lay ahead.

When he awoke the next morning, it was after the first decent night's sleep he'd had in days.

* * *

 **A/N: So I've run into the biggest wall of writer's block I've experienced since starting _Falling Snow_. I haven't been able to write for several weeks now. My confidence is shot, and all attempts to force my way through have only made matters worse. I have two more chapters in my backlog, which were completed before everything went south. At this point, though, I'm not at all sure that I'll be able to work through my issues before those are exhausted. Therefore, I just wanted to give everyone a head's up that there may be another hiatus on the horizon once those have been posted. Thanks for your understanding and support.**


	13. Crises of Identity

"Can you at least tell if we're gaining any ground?"

Kristoff watched Elsa's face draw down in concentration. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, her head tilted to one side. It almost looked as though she was simply straining to hear something, rather than reaching out toward the distant echo of her own magic. He waited, fighting down the impatient urge to prod her again. Interrupting her concentration wouldn't help matters. Instead, he had to content himself with drumming his fingers upon the armrest. At least the challenge of doing that while wearing his thick mittens helped to keep him distracted. It took at least a minute before Elsa shook her head in frustration.

"They're still so far ahead. If we've closed the gap at all, it's not enough that I can tell the difference. I suppose the good news is that I don't think we've lost much ground either."

Resisting the urge to sigh, Kristoff reached down and tugged the small, round canteen from the sled's cup holder. Prying out the stopper, he raised it to his lips and let his mouth fill with water. Elsa waved him off when he offered her a drink, so he plugged the cork back in and returned the bottle to its home.

Even that little act reminded him of Anna. He never would have considered how useful a simple convenience like a small, circular hole could be, yet he had already come to find it nearly indispensable. He appreciated it more than ever on this trip, where he begrudged even a moment's delay.

They had left the mountains behind days earlier, Kristoff having guided them on the quickest passage through the cliffs and canyons that he and Sven had ever made. Now, they continued northward through territory he no longer recognized. In theory, Elsa knew more about this part of their journey than he did. After all, her studies had devoted considerable time to learning at least the basic geography of surrounding lands. But that had all come out of books and maps. Having been isolated within the castle for most of her life, she'd seen little enough of Arendelle with her own eyes, let alone the world beyond. Nor did it help that, in their haste to leave and with Elsa's sense of Olaf's magic promising to guide them, neither had thought to grab a map.

Her general sense for Olaf's distant location wouldn't keep them from making a wrong turn or wasting valuable time backtracking should they hit a dead end. That was why, for the time being at least, they had adopted the simple expedient of following what appeared to be a broad and well-traveled road. Based on what she could remember from her lessons, Elsa seemed reasonably confident that it was most likely the main north-south highway that connected many of the lands north of Arendelle's borders. What she was less sure of was at what point they had joined the road or exactly how far along it they had gone. It left them in the peculiar state of not being lost precisely, even though they didn't exactly know where they were either. Of course, when ranked against all the other problems they were (or would soon be) facing, such minor confusion barely even registered.

"Well," he finally replied, "if they aren't pulling even further ahead, then I'd say that pretty much confirms they aren't flying anymore. As good news goes, that might not seem like much, but hopefully it means that even her powers have their limits. That's something at least, right?"

When he received no answer, he glanced sideways at Elsa. Her eyes were open again and were staring down at her hands, which rested in her lap, palms facing upward. But her face did not display the distant expression he'd begun associating with her withdrawal into her private insecurities. Instead, her slightly narrowed eyes, her lowered brow, and the narrow set of her mouth all indicated that she was actually deep in thought about something very specific.

Before he could ask what was on her mind, she raised a hand and almost carelessly twirled it over the side of the sled.

A large ball of snow curled up along the edge of the road as they passed, looking for all the world as though a giant was helping himself to a heaping scoop of ice cream. When it had grown to the size of a small boulder, the rough sphere rose into the air and began to drift toward him. It stopped in midair to hover a short distance in front of Elsa. She regarded it with a frown. Then her other hand rose from her lap and, together with its partner, began to weave its way through the air.

The snow shuddered once and then began to stretch, elongating and flattening into a narrow ellipsoid. It barely held that shape for the space of a breath before Elsa's hand movements changed, becoming considerably more intricate than they had been a scant moment earlier. The simple symmetry dissolved as the mass of white shifted. The bottom half narrowed while the rest grew a little wider.

Near the top, the smooth curves on either side slid downwards, flattening out as they went. A bulge remained in the middle though, and this began to push upward like icing from a piping bag. It even began to taper off as though it was about ready to be popped loose from the end of the tube, but it remained attached via a short, if somewhat narrow, column.

Long cracks began to form along the length of the shape – one near the bottom, one on either side. The fissures deepened until they reached all the way through from front to back. Snow slid this way and that, rounding off the flat faces on either side of the splits. By this point, there was no mistaking the basic form. Kristoff watched in rapt fascination as the rough outline continued to evolve before his very eyes.

Feet sprouted from the ends of the legs. The arms gained definition, bulging at the elbows and narrowing at their wrists. With ponderous slowness, fingers began to take shape, looking unbelievably slender considering the material from which they were made. It shouldn't be possible for such thin cylinders of snow to hold together, yet somehow they did.

His eyes were drawn further up the figure. The head was changing, too. No longer a simple sphere, it had grown narrower. There was now a definite chin and jawline. A triangular nose pushed forward, seeming to draw its material from the space immediately above it. There, the snow was receding, forming two hollows beneath a crude brow ridge. Slight bulges formed where the eyes should be, but they remained blank and expressionless.

Even as he watched, though, the features wavered. The nose shrank, grew, began to slide down the face only to be pulled back up again. The brow lowered as if in thought before beginning to cave in. It rolled over like a cresting wave, then curled up again and struggled to reform itself. Ears started to press outward on either side, but failed to produce more than shallow impressions. It was as though they were straining to break through but lacked the strength to push their way out. The entire face kept sliding around in a most disconcerting way, like a wax sculpture brought too close to a flame.

Kristoff tore his eyes away to instead look at Elsa. The concentration he saw on her face was so intense, it was almost frightening. Her hands were no longer fluttering about, but they also weren't steady. Indeed, they were shaking badly, the fingers plucking at the air like some sort of mad harpist. The steely determination in her eyes began to falter, giving way first to annoyance, then worry, and finally wide-eyed panic. She was obviously fighting as hard as she could to maintain control over the complicated sculpture. She was just obviously losing the battle.

It started with the fingers, which fell off one by one. Small nubs started to reform, trying to regrow to take their place. Having now begun, however, the collapse continued to accelerate at too rapid a pace for an overtaxed Elsa to keep up. The features of the face blurred, quickly dissolving into an unrecognizable pockmarked surface. The neck stretched ominously as the head tipped further and further backward before finally tearing free, bouncing off the front of the sled and dropping beneath the skids. The feet simply began to disintegrate, breaking off in chunks like a sandcastle besieged by the rising tide.

When the legs had completely disappeared below the knees, Elsa's shoulders slumped. With a final twitch of her fingers, the remaining snow burst apart, peppering them both with a shower of flakes. Lowering her shaking hands once again to her lap, she began to kneed each with the other. Kristoff wasn't sure if she was wringing them in distress or simply massaging feeling back into fingers that had been strained by exertions he could not hope to imagine.

"What was that about?" He tried to keep his voice as casual as possible.

"My limitations," she replied. "You've seen what my snow creations look like. They're simple, even crude. It's not that I want them to be that way, you know. That's just the way they come out. I've never been able to make them terribly detailed or get them to hold sharp edges. There's a reason why there's an ice palace atop the North Mountain and not one made of snow. I had always assumed that was simply how my magic worked.

"But the Snow Queen made snow soldiers that were every bit as detailed as anything I could hope to make out of ice. If our magics really are the same, then it stands to reason I should be able to do that too." She gestured dismissively at the empty space in front of her. "Except, apparently, I can't... or don't know how to."

"Well," Kristoff said, feeling hopelessly out of his depth offering advice on the proper wielding of magic, "maybe you just need more practice."

Elsa frowned. "You need to have some idea how to do a thing before you can practice doing it. I'm not even sure where to begin. Snow just doesn't want to hold together that way. Even when I've left a bit of my magic behind, it's only been able to do so much."

"Generally speaking, snow doesn't want to stay floating in midair in front of someone who's riding along in a moving sled either," he pointed out. "If you can defy gravity like that, then I'd say you've already made a pretty good start at showing that snow who's boss."

She didn't answer. Kristoff knew that it would be easy enough to just let the matter drop, but a nagging little voice inside his head wouldn't let him. It told him that if they were to have any hope against the Snow Queen, Elsa would need to have full confidence in her abilities. It insisted that she just needed a bit of encouragement and a little more prodding. And it pointed out the obvious fact that he was the only person able to give it to her right then.

That the voice happened to sound just like Anna meant that he really didn't have much choice but to listen to it. The _Conscience of Arendelle?_ he thought to himself. _More like the Conscience of Kristoff!_

"Maybe..." he began slowly. "Maybe you just need to start a little smaller. Building an entire body might be too big of a first step. That's a lot to keep track of at once. Why don't you try something simpler? Sven and I didn't start by carving full-sized ice blocks out of the mountain lakes, but we got there eventually."

Again, he waited for her response, but all he got was a subtle change in the quality of frustration upon her face. Maybe it was just his imagination, but he thought his words might have at least given her something to think about. His own brain silently fumbled around, trying to come up with what else Anna would say under these circumstances to support her sister. This wasn't easy. He tended to be as deliberate about his words as Anna was garrulous. And though her voice could somehow pop into his head unbidden, actually trying to make himself think in that same voice seemed to cause his mind to seize up in protest.

He had just opened his mouth to make what he knew would be a half-baked attempt when Elsa lifted her hand again and gave it a twirl. A globe of snow about the size of a fortuneteller's crystal ball materialized out of nothing, then dropped into her outstretched palms. Balancing it on one hand, she began to move the other over and around its surface, causing the snow to rise, fall, and flow. Kristoff watched, unable to tell if she was aiming for a particular shape or if she was just experimenting with different techniques.

Nor was he given the time to find out.

"Halt, in the name of the king!"

Kristoff's head snapped back around even as he pulled hard on the reins. Sven had already begun slowing the sled, though. He hadn't been given a great deal of choice in the matter. They had passed into a bit of forest whose trees pressed in close on either side of the road, and that road was now effectively blocked by four armed men. A sound from behind caused Kristoff to look over his shoulder, only to see two more soldiers stepping out from the trees on either side, their weapons leveled menacingly.

"You know, I'm really starting to miss the days when wolves were the most dangerous thing I had to worry about," he grumbled quietly.

"Shh," Elsa whispered beside him, letting her snowball break up and fall through her fingers. It disappeared as soon as it dropped out of sight behind the dash panel. "Just keep quiet. Let me handle this."

He gave a gesture as if to say, "Be my guest," but regretted it almost at once. The movement caused one of the soldiers to adjust his aim, targeting a spot right between Kristoff's eyes. With a tense little smile, Kristoff slowly raised his hands in submission.

"What is the meaning of this?" Elsa asked, rising to her feet. She paid no heed to the even more aggressive stance this elicited from the men surrounding them, but instead focused solely on the one who had given the earlier order for them to stop. "This road has never been held against travelers in the past, and we are in need of haste. Why do you detain us?"

"The king's orders, milady," he replied.

She frowned, then craned her neck and looked around as if seeking a landmark of some sort. Apparently finding none, she returned her gaze to the man before them. "You'll have to forgive me," she said, "but we have been traveling for many days now, and I'm afraid I've lost track of exactly how far we have come. Of which king do you speak?"

Seeming surprised by the question, he replied, "You are in the land of King Ulrik and Queen Olavine."

"Ah!" Recognition dawned across Elsa's face. "Kråkeheim, then! I've never met King Ulrik, but I know of him. By all accounts, he is a wise and just man. I would not have thought him the sort who would waylay travelers needlessly. What has happened to cause him to bar people from crossing his lands?"

"Not all people," the soldier replied. His weapon, which had drooped somewhat during their conversation, now swung up again to aim directly at Elsa's chest. "Just you."

Kristoff stiffened and peered up at Elsa, whose eyes had widened in surprise. "Now just a minute," he said, starting to rise from his seat to stand beside her.

 _Thwack!_ A crossbow bolt slammed into the black-lacquered wood right beside his hand.

"Hey!" he exclaimed. The shot had clearly been intended to cow him, but it actually had the opposite effect. Pulling off his mittens, he plucked the arrow loose and bent down to examine the hole it had left behind. He ran his fingers over the gash, then straightened and glared at the soldier who had fired.

"This," he said, using the tip of the arrow to point at the sled, "was a gift. It's not even a year old yet, and you had to go take a chunk out of it? What is wrong with you people?" He jerked the arrow over his shoulder in Elsa's direction. "Do you even have any idea who this is?"

Elsa placed one finger carefully on the head of the arrow, slowly pushing it aside so that it was no longer quite so close to piercing her eyeball. "Kristoff," she said delicately, "just calm down. We don't need to make matters any worse."

"I am calm!" His grip on the arrow tightened convulsively, and it suddenly snapped it two. He looked down at it guiltily, then waved the pieces in the direction of the soldiers. "Besides, they're the ones who shot at us. If anyone needs to calm down, it's them!"

He felt Elsa's hand upon his shoulder, felt it exert a gentle downward pressure. Reluctantly, and with a bit of a huff, he sat down again. He still continued to glower at the soldier who had injured his (and Anna's) precious sled, though. The two exchanged scowls across the short distance, each apparently determined to see the other blink first.

"Now as I was saying," Elsa continued, "I've not had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of either King Ulrik or Queen Olavine. Moreover, this journey was entirely unplanned, so there was no way they could have known I was coming. That leaves me at something of a loss as to what possible reason they might have to place soldiers on this road for the specific purpose of detaining me."

"The orders were not limited to me and my men," the leader of the small band explained. "Every soldier in the king's service was instructed to remain alert for a woman matching your description. If found, she was to be apprehended and brought before the king. But we were instructed to exercise the greatest caution, for this woman can apparently be extremely dangerous." His eyes flicked quickly over Elsa's slight frame in a way that clearly indicated he was having difficulty imagining her as any sort of danger to anyone, least of all to his men.

"I see," said Elsa. "And what, might I ask, was the description you were given?"

"Slim. Long blond hair. Pale skin. Light blue clothing. Might be traveling by sledge." He stopped there, but his surreptitious glance at Sven hinted at things left unspoken: presumably, the sled they'd been instructed to watch for was not supposed to have been pulled by a reindeer.

"I'm afraid there has been some confusion. Despite any similarities, I can assure you that I am not the one you are looking for."

Elsa was doing her best to remain calm and poised, yet from his seat beside her, Kristoff could see the telltale signs of her disquiet. She was standing just a touch too stiffly. The tension in her shoulders had lifted them so that they formed a rigid horizontal line straight across her body. Her chin was tipped up a little, as though she instinctively wanted to avoid making eye contact with anyone.

"There was one other thing," the man added. "One that did not have to be included in the description because we all were already aware of it. The woman we were told to watch for had the power to control ice and snow. And before you attempt to deny it, I should warn you that you were seen earlier doing exactly that."

"I do not deny it," Elsa replied. "Not any longer. It's a part of me, part of who I am. That you find this surprising tells me that you have not yet realized who it is you have captured. I am Queen Elsa of Arendelle."

At that, the soldiers' strict discipline wavered slightly as they took their eyes off their targets to exchange quick looks with one another. Most ended up turning toward their commander, who still stood his ground in the middle of the road. As befit an officer, neither his gaze nor his aim had wavered, though his eyes had momentarily widened at the pronouncement. Now they had narrowed again and his jaw muscles were tight as he ground his teeth together, trying to decide how best to respond.

"Your Majesty," he said at last, inclining his head in the slightest of bows. Even so, he kept his eyes firmly fixed upon her face and did not lower his weapon. "We have heard of your remarkable gifts, of course. We simply did not expect to find you passing through our lands unannounced. It is indeed a long journey from Arendelle, and also highly unusual for any ruler to travel so far from home with so… humble an escort."

Elsa returned a nod of her own, acknowledging the truth in his words. "As I said, our departure was unplanned and we left in great haste. There was no time to make formal arrangements or to send ahead with news of our coming. Speed was, and still is, of the essence. We have urgent matters to which we must attend, and I assure you that they have nothing to do with your kingdom beyond our need to pass through it. If you will just let us go, we will be on our way with all possible speed, and you will have my word as the ruler of Arendelle that we will create no problems for you or any of your people."

He appeared to consider this for a moment. Then he drew himself up to stand even straighter than he already had been. "I'm sorry, Your Majesty, but I have my orders and, as a soldier, I must follow them. There was no room given for exceptions. That means I must present you before King Ulrik. He alone can decide when you will be allowed to continue on your way."

"We don't have time for this," groaned Kristoff, rolling his eyes before giving Elsa an exasperated look. "Couldn't you just…?" He waggled his fingers in the direction of the soldiers.

"And start a diplomatic incident?" she asked, leaning toward him and attempting to pitch her voice so that only he could hear. "If I attack them, they would have every right to consider it an act of aggression or even war."

Kristoff indicated the pieces of arrow still clutched in his hand. "And this wasn't aggressive?"

"They're soldiers protecting their kingdom. They had no idea who we were. We're the strangers here, remember. As inconvenient as it may be, how can I fault their actions? If situations were reversed, I would expect my orders to be carried out every bit as diligently."

"But Anna…"

"I know! Look, if we try to force our way through, they'll only send up the alarm. Then every soldier in Kråkeheim will be on alert and far more likely to just shoot us on sight. We'd be facing one fight after another. You think that won't slow us down even more? Besides, Arendelle needs every friend it can get right now. Between Weselton and the Southern Isles, we can't afford to be making more enemies."

"So what do you suggest we do?"

Elsa's brow furrowed and her lips thinned. She clearly didn't like the situation they were in or any of the options she had to choose from, but that didn't prevent her from making a swift decision as to what needed to be done. Straightening, she turned again to the officer before them. "Very well. We will go to King Ulrik. But given the urgency of our errand, we would ask that you take us to him as quickly as possible. Do you have a sled of your own?"

"No, Your Majesty. It is far easier for us rangers to patrol the forests on foot."

"Walking pace is too slow." She frowned, peering around at the soldiers that surrounded them. "How many of your men would need to accompany us to satisfy your duty?"

The officer blinked. "We were instructed to take all possible precautions," he began.

"If you know who I am," Elsa interrupted, "then I presume you have heard what I can do as well. You can trust me when I say that I will give your men no trouble, because if I were going to do so, I would have already. I will go to your king even if you send no escort whatsoever. On that, you have my word. Of course, I know that is not enough, so I ask again. How many men need accompany us?"

He hesitated a moment longer, then looked around at the small troop of soldiers. Finally, he gestured at the burliest of the lot, the one who had fired his crossbow earlier, and motioned him forward. "Lieutenant, you will escort Her Majesty, Queen Elsa, to the royal palace. You will see to it that she presents herself to the king immediately upon her arrival. You will then follow whatever orders His Majesty sees fit to give you. Understood?"

The lieutenant saluted. "Yes, sir!" Then he circled around in front of the sled until he stood beside Kristoff. "I drive," he commanded gruffly.

Kristoff opened his mouth to protest, but Elsa's hand upon his arm stopped him. Instead, he considered the driver's bench. "I don't think there's room enough here for the three of us," he observed drolly.

"That won't be a problem," Elsa answered. Turning to face the rear of the sled, she swept an arm through the air in a wide curve. In the next instant, an arch of ice materialized out of nowhere, stretching from one side of the cargo area to the other and riding high enough to clear the various boxed provisions that filled it. In the midst of the arch, a shimmering, crystalline seat formed. With singular grace, Elsa stepped up onto the back of the driver's bench, spun around, and lowered herself onto the chair.

Kristoff enjoyed a small sense of satisfaction as he watched the looks of shock appear on the faces of every single soldier. "Isn't that…?" their commander stammered, finding himself flustered for the first time during this encounter. "That is to say… Well, I should think that… Won't that be rather cold? I mean, won't sitting on ice all the way to the castle bother you?"

Elsa looked at him coolly. "No," she answered. Then, addressing the lieutenant, she added. "If you wouldn't mind, please. As I said, time is precious to us at the moment."

Kristoff slid to the other side of the bench as the soldier climbed up and took the reins. Even with just the two of them, their broad shoulders made it a rather tight fit. Ahead of them, the men who had been barring the way stepped aside, clearing the road. With a final salute to his commander, the lieutenant snapped the reins and cried, "Giddap!"

Sven looked back over his shoulder at the brawny man, his eyelids half-closed as if to say, "You can't be serious." Kristoff had to fight his instinct to vocalize for his friend. He somehow doubted the soldiers would find it amusing. When the reindeer's regard shifted toward him, Kristoff shrugged apologetically. With a halfhearted smile and a small nod, he indicated that, just this once, Sven would have to accept somebody else telling him what to do. The reindeer snorted in disgust.

"Giddap!" their escort called out again. "I said, gid-"

The sled shot forward so quickly, Kristoff had to grab hold of his hat to keep it from flying off. Beside him, the soldier let slip an involuntary yelp of surprise. Craning his neck around, Kristoff saw Elsa leaning calmly back in her seat with her arms crossed. An amused smile quickly disappeared from her face.

It occurred to him then that it might not have been entirely his own skill that had seen them through the mountains in record time. After all, a layer of ice beneath the runners could certainly do wonders to reduce friction and improve speed.

• • •

They arrived at the palace later that day as the sun was dipping low on the horizon. At least the detour had taken them in a mostly northerly direction, which helped to keep Kristoff's fuming to a bare minimum. Their odd seating arrangement had earned them no end of curious stares from people they'd passed along the way, but only the lieutenant seemed to have been made at all uncomfortable by them. Now, as he reined Sven to a halt just within the castle gates, their escort seemed to be more relieved to have arrived at their destination than either of his passengers-cum-prisoners. Elsa in particular radiated a quiet dignity as she accepted Kristoff's hand and stepped lightly down from her elevated seat, which disintegrated into a gust of glittering flakes the second that its usefulness ended.

Kristoff reached into a pocket of his heavy coat and dug out a carrot, or rather several broken pieces of one. Holding them out to Sven, he scratched the reindeer's neck. "I'm afraid you're going to have to wait here, okay, buddy? We won't be gone long." He glanced up at the imposing stone walls of the palace citadel. "I hope. Anyway, I'm sure you'll be taken good care of until we get back." He said these last words while glowering at the lieutenant.

"Your animal will be treated quite well in our stables, I can assure you." The soldier then gave a gesture and three palace guards detached themselves from their posts to fall into position around the visitors – one in front with the forest ranger and two behind. It wasn't clear whether their role was as honor guard or security force. Either way, the six of them walked together across the open court toward the main entrance of the royal residence.

They had just reached the bottom of the stairs that led up to the doors when Kristoff and Elsa both ducked, minor exclamations of surprise leaping from their mouths. A large black bird had appeared out of nowhere, swooping low right over their heads before alighting atop one of the pillars at the bottom of the balustrade. Hopping around in a circle to face them, it cocked its head to one side as though inspecting them with intent curiosity.

"Hello."

Kristoff felt his jaw fall open. "Did that… did that bird just…?"

"Hello."

"That is one of the queen's birds," explained the guard in front of them, who hadn't been phased by the flyby in the slightest. "Mikel, if I'm not mistaken. She has kept crows as pets for years. Some of the ones about the palace these days are actually descendents through several generations from the very first one she had as a child. Others have simply come to visit and chosen to stay – adopted into the family, as it were. There's no shortage of them around these parts, after all."

"No, I should think not," replied Elsa, her heart still beating rapidly from her startlement. It made sense, after all, in a kingdom whose name literally meant "crow home."

"They're actually very intelligent creatures," the guard began to elaborate, but he was quickly cut off by a stern look from the lieutenant.

"There may be time for idle chatter later," he snapped, "but right now, I need to bring these two before the king." He shot a look back at them. "Or at least one of them."

"Wherever Elsa goes, I go!" Kristoff declared in no uncertain terms. The officer raised an eyebrow.

"Is this man your bodyguard?" he asked skeptically.

"Something like that," Elsa replied, ignoring the sharp look that Kristoff gave her. She did not feel like going into details about their current situation until she knew more about the new mess they were getting themselves into, and her instincts told her that these men would be more likely to allow a bodyguard to accompany her than her sister's suitor.

"He seems awfully… informal for someone in his position."

"Yes, well, sharing a few life-or-death experiences can sometimes have that effect. Shall we be going?"

The lieutenant speared Kristoff with one last wary glare before he nodded. Turning, he led the small procession up the stairs. The crow continued to watch their ascent until they at last disappeared through the heavy double doors.

Though the palace outside appeared gray and foreboding, its insides could not have been more different. Rich hardwoods covered the floors. The walls were festooned with ornate and brightly colored tapestries. Where light from windows could not reach, lamps mounted on brackets bathed both rooms and hallways with a golden glow. Many fine rugs helped to keep the floors warm. If not for the predominance of stone walls, Elsa could almost have believed that she had simply stumbled into a forgotten wing of Arendelle's castle.

They were not given much time to appreciate the finer details of their surroundings, however. Their escorts marched them quickly through the corridors, past startled servants who paused in their duties to gawp at the strangers being led through their midst. Soon enough, they arrived before the most ornately carved set of doors they had yet seen. The lieutenant had a hushed conversation with one of the wardens stationed outside who, after listening carefully, slipped quietly into the room beyond.

Several minutes passed slowly by, testing Kristoff's patience, until one door finally opened just enough for the first warden to signal to the second. Together, they swung both halves open wide, and the guards ushered them inside.

"Let me do the talking," Elsa whispered to Kristoff. As he took in the room they were entering, he found himself only too happy to oblige.

To call it opulent would have been a disservice to the word. Thick marble columns supported the ceiling high overhead. The banners and heraldry upon the walls were so cunningly crafted that it was difficult to notice the stone behind them. Fine silver filigree drew the eyes in and guided them through stunning depictions of history both ancient and new, releasing them with great reluctance, only for the viewer's gaze to then be immediately trapped by the next one in line.

At the far end of this magnificent room stood two tall thrones side-by-side. Only one of them was occupied, and the man who sat in it looked wearier than the stones at the root of the tallest mountain. As they walked the length of the great hall, they saw that he was rather old. His shoulder-length hair had at least as much gray as the ruddy-brown that must have dominated in his youth. Even less of that original color was left in his neatly trimmed beard. He sat bent forward, elbows resting on his thighs and hands clasped between his knees. His eyes, which had been staring distractedly at a spot on the floor, looked up from beneath his brows when they finally drew near.

He considered them gravely as Elsa offered a respectful curtsey. "Your Majesty," she said. Kristoff, belatedly remembering proper protocol, bowed as well and repeated the formal greeting.

The king watched while they straightened, then inclined his head toward Elsa. "Queen Elsa, I presume." When she nodded, he sat back in his throne, continuing to regard them through shrewd eyes.

"How much do you know about why my men brought you here?"

"Very little," Elsa replied, "though based on what they said, I have suspicions that go a bit beyond anything they told us directly."

"Do you, now?" the king asked. "And what might those be?"

Elsa drew a deep breath before she answered. "You were visited by the Snow Queen."

The guards stirred restlessly at this pronouncement, but King Ulrik merely quirked an eyebrow. "There are some who use that name to describe you," he pointed out.

"That may be, but there is one who laid claim to that title long before I was even born, and she is far more dangerous than I have ever been."

"Mm. And how do you know this woman?"

"She visited Arendelle as well. In fact, we were pursuing her ourselves when your men detained us."

"Why? What has she done to you?"

"That… is a very long story. But if I might ask, Your Majesty, what has she done to incur the wrath of your kingdom? Perhaps our goals are not altogether dissimilar. It's entirely possible we might even be able to assist one another, if you would be willing to accept our help."

The king stared at Elsa for a long while without speaking. Finally, he appeared to make up his mind. Rising to his feet, he motioned to the lieutenant. "You, come with us. The rest, remain here. This shouldn't take long." Without waiting for any acknowledgment, he turned and walked swiftly through a door behind and to one side of his throne. Elsa, Kristoff, and the soldier all hurried to follow.

It was only a short walk down a deserted passage before they stopped at another closed door. King Ulrik's hand reached out to grasp the handle, but he hesitated before turning it. Closing his eyes, he appeared to be marshaling his courage. Then, with a heavy sigh, he twisted the handle and walked inside.

"Hello, my dear," he said as the rest filed in behind him.

Sitting upon a low stool idly brushing her graying hair was a woman whose face should have held the same age-earned wisdom as the king's. However, when she looked up at the sound of his voice, all could immediately see that something was not right. It was hard to say whether it was her eyes or her smile, but something about her expression seemed uncomfortably out of place.

"Oh, hello," she answered brightly. "Has there been any word yet? Have any come in answer to the newspapers I had printed? I do hope so. Now that I've made up my mind, I find that I really cannot wait much longer. You must understand how terribly exciting this whole business is. Oh, but of course you do! The entire kingdom is all aflutter about it, are they not? And why shouldn't they be?

"After all, it's not every day that their princess decides to find herself a prince!"

With a giggle, she went back to brushing her hair, apparently oblivious to the tears that were beginning to spill down the king's cheeks. He leaned heavily upon a dresser, one hand rising up to cover the bottom half of his face. This made his next words difficult to make out, for they were softly spoken even before being muffled. But this was what Elsa thought she heard:

"My darling. My beloved Olavine. What did she do to you? Where have you gone?

"Come back to me, my queen."


	14. On Winter's Wings

"How did it happen?" Elsa asked King Ulrik with a mixture of sympathy and dread.

The room to which they had retreated was dominated by a single long table surrounded by a number of high-backed chairs. The king, moving as if by pure habit, had taken the seat at the table's head. Elsa sat at his right hand and Kristoff, still playing the role of bodyguard, leaned against the wall across from her. Ordinarily, he might have been a little annoyed by this arrangement, but he was still too shaken by what he had just seen to worry overly much about such trifles.

The king remained silent for so long that it wasn't even clear that he had heard Elsa's question. She exchanged a concerned glance with Kristoff who simply shook his head, as much at a loss as she was. The lieutenant had continued to accompany them as well, having been given no orders to do otherwise, and now stood by the door. Though he maintained the stiff posture appropriate for a soldier in the presence of his king, something about him nevertheless managed to convey a sense of nervous fidgeting.

All eyes were drawn back to the head of the table by the sound a throat being cleared. King Ulrik did not meet any of their gazes but continued to stare at the polished wooden surface before him. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse and strained.

"All that we really know about what happened comes from one of her handmaidens, and even that is woefully muddled. The poor woman was so distraught by the time she managed to get the queen back to the castle that it took hours of questioning before we were finally able to piece together her story."

• • •

Queen Olavine had set out that morning, as she so often did, with one of her attendants at her side. On this day, Nelli had volunteered to join her queen, for she had felt like getting out of the palace for a while, despite the chill air. Moreover, she always enjoyed helping with this particular errand. So, each carrying a small but weighty sack, they had walked out of the castle gates together.

Despite all best efforts, it had proven difficult to keep the streets and walking paths clear for any extended period of time since the onset of winter. Between recurring new snowfalls and winds that seemed to create and then disperse drifts every other day, it had proven to be a losing battle at best. Still, the snow was little more than ankle-deep at first, and they made reasonably good time, chatting amiably about largely inconsequential topics as they went.

Eventually, however, they had no choice but to venture off the more well-traveled paths where the snow lay considerably thicker. Few people visited the grove toward which they were now headed, at least not on foot at this time of year. Many passed its far side, of course, where its westernmost edge skirted the great north-south highway, but they would have needed to travel far out of their way if they had wanted to approach it from that direction.

The going got somewhat easier once they passed beneath the trees. Despite being bare of leaf, their mighty trunks and intertwined boughs had managed to thwart the snow to a certain extent. Queen Olavine, who came here often, knew the clearest paths that avoided the worst of the tangles and brambles, so even the greedy fingers of the low-hanging branches did not present any real hindrance. They were able to continue their genial conversation with little interruption, at least until they neared the center of the grove.

They knew they were approaching the clearing long before they saw it. The noise reached them first, growing steadily louder as they drew nearer. Eventually, they had little choice but to give up trying to talk to each other. They could barely make themselves heard over the chirping, singing, crying and cawing of the countless birds that had gathered in the trees all about them.

Even during the winter months, there was no shortage of food kept out for birds around the castle. The queen herself made certain of that. Yet for some reason, this massive avian community seemed to prefer gathering here, despite the bare trees and snow-covered ground. Obviously, they had found ways to thrive all across these lands for ages, long before Olavine had even been born. Yet that did not change the fact that she'd always had a soft spot for them all and wanted to do whatever she could to care for them. This was particularly true for the crows. She'd always thought it a shame that such incredibly intelligent creatures should be viewed as little more than pests by the kingdom's farmers and gardeners.

It was true the birds might not need her help to survive the long winters, and even if they had, she could easily have ordered others to look after them instead. But the queen found joy in seeing to this simple task herself. She consider the birds to be her friends and swore that she could tell every single one of them apart from all the rest. Nelli had no idea how that could be possible, but nothing she'd ever seen had given her cause to doubt the claim. Now, having arrived in the clearing, they each opened their bags and set to work.

To keep the seeds from getting lost, they walked backwards, stamping the snow down as best they could before sprinkling their delivery onto the freshly packed surface. They had only managed to take a few steps in this fashion before the bravest of the birds swooped down and began to peck at the delicacies. Each newly cleared section convinced yet more feathered diners to join in the feast. The sight of all the happy birds brought a broad smile to the queen's face.

With so many beaks to feed, it took a while before either of them realized that anything was amiss. While most of the birds were either fluttering down to eat or else perched in their trees waiting, Queen Olavine eventually noticed one solitary crow on the ground near the edge of the clearing, far away from any of its fellows or from the food they were busily sharing. Taking a few steps closer to it, she tossed a handful of seed its way, thinking it was merely shy. Yet it seemed uninterested, instead hopping a sort distance away into the trees before stopping to look back at her.

"Nelli," she called out, "I think something may be wrong over here. This one is acting as though it wants me to follow it."

"'Shall I come with you, Your Majesty?" There was no need to even ask whether the queen planned to accompany the bird.

"No, I don't think that will be necessary. I shouldn't be gone long. Do you think you can manage this hungry bunch on your own?"

"Of course." Nelli paused to watch the queen disappear between the trees before she quickly became distracted again by the insistent haranguing of birds impatiently waiting for their next course to arrive.

Only when her sack was nearly empty did she begin to wonder at Queen Olavine's continued absence. As she upturned the bag to shake out the last of the remaining seed, she stared off into the woods in the direction her mistress had gone. What could possibly be taking her so long? It wasn't like her to wander off before she had finished tending to her feathered friends. And while there had been no recent reports of banditry or other such problems this close to the castle, Nelli nevertheless found herself growing increasingly worried that something untoward might have happened. The queen was no longer a young woman, after all, loath though she might be to acknowledge that fact. So, making up her mind, she set off in pursuit, following the footprints still clearly visible in the snow.

The path she was following wandered little, avoiding knots of thorny brambles and other minor obstacles but always proceeding in a westerly direction. The longer Nelli walked, the more concerned she became. Just how far had the queen gone in pursuit of this crow? What had the bird wanted to show her that would take them both so far from the clearing? She was making her way up a steep slope and the trees were beginning to thin out around her when she finally caught a glimpse of her answer.

Between the trunks, a flicker of movement just beyond the crest of the hill drew her attention. She stopped in her tracks, craning her neck to try and spot again whatever it might have been. Finally, it reappeared. The top of a head poked up into view and, though it was turned away from her, Nelli had no doubt that it belonged to Queen Olavine. She opened her mouth to call out, but stopped when she caught the sound of voices coming from that same direction. Frowning, she strained to make out the words, but the speakers were still too distant for her to hear them clearly. So, with a small sound of exasperation, she resumed her trudge up the snowy embankment.

The straight climb proved too steep, and she was forced to veer off to one side to tackle the ascent. So it was that, when she finally came out of the woods, she was some ways north from where her queen knelt by the side of the road. For indeed, they had both traveled so far that they had come out the far side of the grove onto the highway. As Nelli took a moment to catch her breath following the long walk and tricky climb, she tried to make out what exactly Her Majesty was doing. She appeared to be looking down at something that lay in her lap. A crow, presumably the one that had guided her to this spot, stood right beside her knee, expectantly shifting its gaze between the queen's face and whatever it was she was holding.

Another woman stood in the middle of the road, far enough back from the shoulder that Nelli would not have been able to see her from downslope. She wore a long blue traveling cloak coupled with a tall hat of white fur atop her flaxen hair. Beside her stood a snow-white sled, its panels carved with ornate patterns so intricate, they merged into little more than a blur at this distance. It looked as though the stranger must have halted her travels upon seeing the queen by the side of the road. Now she appeared to be considering Olavine, a thoughtful expression upon her pale face.

Neither of them seemed to have noticed Nelli's arrival. She began to walk along the road toward the two women, but she had barely taken three steps before she saw the traveler take one of her own. The fair-haired woman stooped so that her head was nearly at a level with the queen's. She might have been whispering in her ear or simply leaning in to get a better look at what she was cradling in the folds of her dress. Nelli could not be certain, for Queen Olavine's head was blocking her view.

Then she saw the queen gasp and stiffen, her face momentarily contorted with what looked like exquisite pain.

"Your Majesty!" Nelli cried out, her slow walk suddenly giving way to a much more urgent sprint.

The stranger straightened, took one long look at Nelli, then turned and climbed casually back into her sleigh without so much as a word.

Nelli stumbled, dropped to her knees, and scrambled the final short distance to her queen's side. Concern trumping all thought of propriety, she reached out and turned Olavine to face her. "Your Majesty, are you hurt? Is everything all right?"

The queen blinked blankly at her for a moment. "I'm sorry," she said slowly, "but do I know you? That is, you seem to know me… and yet not. At the very least, you seem unfamiliar with the proper forms of royal address. You should only use 'Your Majesty' when addressing my mother, the queen. I am simply 'Your Highness.' Or Princess Olavine, if you prefer."

Nelli gaped at the queen, then turned to look at the mysterious woman. "Who are you?" she snapped, pushing herself to her feet as she did so. "Who are you, and what did you do to Queen Olavine?"

The pale woman looked at her coldly. "Who I am is of little consequence, for I see no reason to think that we will ever meet again. As for what I've done..." Her eyes slid off Nelli's face to the figure who still knelt on the ground beside her. Though the handmaiden could not be sure, it seemed as if the woman's expression softened.

"I have given her a gift."

"A gift?" Nelli scoffed. "She doesn't remember who I am. She doesn't even rightly remember who she is herself! What sort of a gift is that?"

With a dismissive air, the stranger turned away. "You are too young to understand. Perhaps one day, when you are older, you will see things differently. Perhaps you will not. Either way, it is no concern of mine. I have already tarried here longer than I intended. My business lies elsewhere, and I must be on my way."

"No! You can't leave! You have to put her back. I can't… I can't take her back to the palace like this! You have to undo whatever it is you've done. You have to make her whole again."

"I have to do no such thing."

"I can't let you go!" Nelli exclaimed. "Not until you've put things right!" She took a step toward the sled, unsure what exactly she was about to do, but determined to do whatever she could.

A deep, rumbling growl made her jump. Only then did she bother to look at the animals hitched to the front of the sleigh, and a tiny whimper escaped her throat despite her best efforts to hold it back. An enormous white bear was looking back at her, its teeth bared menacingly.

She tried to swallow, but found that there was no moisture left in her mouth. She wanted to move, but her body seemed unwilling to respond. She couldn't even look away from the fearsome beast. It was as if she'd suddenly been frozen solid.

The blond woman clicked her tongue and gave the reins a flick. With one final snarl, the bear's head swung around. Its powerful legs and those of its companion dug into the snow, and the sleigh began to slowly inch forward..

"No, stop!" Freed from whatever spell had gripped her, Nelli darted forward, reaching out to grab hold of something – the reins, the woman's cloak, the sideboard, anything – and try, however fruitlessly, to prevent her from leaving.

Without warning, the ground beneath her feet shuddered violently. The next thing she knew, her arms were pinwheeling like mad as she tried to remain upright. The whole world seemed to slew drunkenly. She teetered, suspended in a final instant of stability. Then she toppled over, falling full-length onto her back in the middle of the snowy road, Struggling up into a sitting position, she watched as the white sledge sped away. Within seconds, it had descended the south side of the hill and disappeared from sight.

Wondering what had made her lose her balance in such a dramatic fashion, Nelli looked down at her feet… and gasped. To her amazement, a white ridge several meters long and perhaps half a meter high stretched across the road. The top edge curled toward her like the crest of a breaking wave. Clearly, no such feature had been there mere moments before, but the sensations she had felt beneath her feet slowly began to make a terrifying sort of sense.

As she sat there, her mind struggling to understand what had just happened, she realized that there was a soft sobbing coming from somewhere nearby. Climbing to her feet, she made her way shakily over to where Queen Olavine still knelt by the side of the road. Lowering herself to her knees beside her mistress, she placed one hand tentatively upon her back.

"I… I think..." the queen managed to stammer out between sniffles. "I think it's dead."

Nelli lowered her eyes to the queen's lap. There, cradled upon the heavy fabric that stretched between her legs, lay a black crow. Its eyes were closed. The only tiny movements that could be seen were those made by the wind as it buffeted feathers that stuck out in unnatural directions.

The queen's fingers were softly stroking the back of the bird's sleek head, as though the gesture might yet give comfort to a soul that was no longer there. The other crow, the one that had led them there and which had barely moved during the entire encounter, stared at its mate. Perhaps it too had finally realized that not even the wise and kind human, who had helped its fellows so many times in the past, would be able to do anything this time.

"Come, Your Majes-… Your Highness," Nelli said awkwardly, moving her hand to grasp the queen's arm just below the shoulder, then trying to gently tug her to her feet. "We should be getting back to the palace. We have been gone a long time. The king will be worried about you."

To each woman, the title conjured up the image of a different man, but the words had their desired effect nevertheless. Laying the unfortunate bird out of the way by the side of the road, Olavine bowed her head for a moment in silent prayer. Then she allowed her attendant to help her to her feet.

"Goodness, we must have been out here for a long while," she said as she rose. "My legs are stiff from the cold."

"All the more reason to get back to a nice warm fire," Nelli replied, even as she felt her chest constricting with panic at the thought of what the king's reaction would be when he found out what had happened to his wife. The dread mounted within her at such a rapid pace, she had to force her next words out past a painful lump that had suddenly lodged itself in her throat.

"Come along, then. We have a long walk ahead of us."

• • •

Silence claimed the room as King Ulrik finished recounting the tale. The entire time he had been speaking, his eyes had never risen from the table. Now he covered his face with his hands, as though he could somehow hide from the terrible fate that had been visited upon his kingdom and his queen.

"You say you were pursuing this woman," he said at last, forcing himself to look at Elsa. "This Snow Queen, as you called her. You now know my reasons for wanting her captured. Will you tell me yours? Or does Arendelle still remain so attached to its secrets after all these years that it will continue to hide them from everyone?"

Elsa closed her eyes briefly in the smallest concession to the pained grimace that would have truly expressed her feelings. "We have opened our gates," she said carefully, "and the secrets that first closed them have been laid bare for the world to see. We hide no more than you do, keeping private only those matters that are critical to the security of our kingdom."

"And is this such a matter?" Ulrik asked, unable to hide the bitterness in his voice.

"Some might say so. But given the circumstances, I cannot in good conscience keep the particulars from you. Not when we appear to share a common enemy. For you see..." She hesitated. As much as she recognized the strategic advantage that could be gained by a show of trust in a potential ally, so many years of tutelage at her father's elbow still made secrecy come far too easily. What would he have done in this situation? Would he have been willing to take the risk of exposing such potential weakness to a man who was essentially a stranger, even if he was also a king? Would he have even allowed himself to get into such a position in the first place?

Elsa set her shoulders and her resolve. Her father had taught her well and provided a fine example of the compromises a leader was often forced to make for the sake of their people. Yet she was now the ruler of Arendelle. In the end, that meant she had to do what she felt was right, and she would deal with the consequences of those choices as they arose, for better or for worse.

"The Snow Queen has taken my sister, Princess Anna," she declared solemnly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the lieutenant stiffen at her announcement. For his part, King Ulrik continued to consider her with grave intent.

"What would she want with your sister?"

"She doesn't want Anna at all," Elsa replied. "She wants me."

She then proceeded to explain to the king everything that had happened in the castle courtyard: every word the Snow Queen had said, every move and countermove in their brief duel. He listened intently, reacting very little except to interrupt now and then to ask a question or seek clarification on particular details. When Elsa finished, he leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled before him, and pondered all that he had learned.

"So this woman claims to be the one who gave you your powers," he said. "A gift, she called them. Well, woe be unto anyone who earns her favor, I say." He stared at Elsa curiously. "And yet nothing you have told me explains what she could have done to my dear Olavine. How does control over ice and snow lead to my queen forgetting the lifetime that we have shared together?"

"I do not know what they have to do with one another, Your Majesty, but it appears that the Snow Queen has powers beyond those she demonstrated in Arendelle. I have been told that she can also erase people's memories with… a kiss."

"Told?" Ulrik's brow knitted in irritation. "Who could possibly have told you such a thing?"

"Our head cook, Gerda. She was a friend to my mother since before I was even born, but I only just learned of her adventure on the day we left Arendelle. It seems that she and the palace steward, Kai, had their own encounter with the Snow Queen many long years ago, when they themselves were but children."

For the first time, King Ulrik actually appeared surprised by Elsa's words. "Gerda? Kai?" He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Why do those names seem familiar? You say this happened when they were children?"

"Yes, Your Majesty." Puzzled by this reaction, Elsa shot a quick glance a Kristoff, who responded with a confused shrug of his own.

"This encounter of theirs. Did they both meet her together?"

"No. From what they told me, the Snow Queen abducted Kai from the town where they both lived, and Gerda set out in pursuit. I'm not sure she ever actually met the woman her-..."

"Ah!" Ulrik exclaimed, and the faintest hint of a smile played about his lips. "Now I remember! Dear Lord, that was a long time ago. We were so young then. In fact, that was shortly after Olavine and I… That is, after she..." Whatever light had briefly returned to his eyes quickly faded as he once again realized that everything he and his queen had done over that span of years was now lost to her memory.

"Forgive me, King Ulrik," Elsa said delicately, "but Kai and Gerda did not have time to tell us their story in detail before we began our pursuit. Of necessity, they focused mainly on the Snow Queen herself. I had no idea that you had even played a part in what happened back then."

"A small part only, I assure you. You see, young Gerda managed to sneak into the castle one night, guided by one of Olavine's pet crows of all things. She had found a copy of the newspaper announcement that proclaimed the princess was searching for a man to become her prince and, in her youthful desperation, decided that the lad who had won the princess's heart must surely be none other than her Kai. I'm afraid she was terribly disappointed when she made her way to the royal bedchambers and found that it was only me instead.

"But she told us her story, and our hearts went out to her. We bade her stay the night in the palace. Come the morning, we sent her off in one of the royal carriages, with four loyal men to look after her and fine new clothes to keep her warm on her journey."

He frowned darkly. "Not long after she left, Olavine and I set out upon travels of our own. We had been planning them for some time, as a celebration of our good fortune at finding each other. We sailed to the continent and had many fine adventures of our own. Still, though it was nearly a year before we finally returned, we discovered that no sign had made its way back to Kråkeheim of either the carriage or any of the men we had sent with it.

"Naturally, we assumed the worst. There are lawless lands away to the north. We thought that the two soldiers we had sent along would be protection enough, but it seemed we had been sorely mistaken. It grieved us to think that a brave and spirited girl like Gerda had been lost in such a terrible fashion, not to mention those of our subjects who had accompanied her. But by then, there was little that we could do, and other matters more pressing soon drove the whole tragic affair from our minds."

He drew a deep breath, then exhaled heavily. "Still, even after all these years, it is good to know that she found a way to survive, and even managed to rescue her friend in the end. It is a shame that you do not know more of her story, for I would very much like to hear it told properly someday and to meet the man who inspired such a devoted friendship."

Elsa nodded once. "When we return to Arendelle, I will be sure to pass along your request. I suspect that Gerda would very much like to return to express her gratitude in person. Certainly, she and Kai have both earned a lengthy holiday."

"That would be most welcome. I only hope that by then, we will have found a way to restore my Olavine to her right mind. No doubt she would enjoy such a reunion as well… if only she might remember the original meeting."

Just then, there was a knock on the door. King Ulrik gestured at the lieutenant, who turned and opened it. A nervous functionary stood in the passage outside, his posture apologizing for the interruption even before his mouth managed to do the same. "Forgive me, Your Majesty, but… the queen is asking for you."

Hope kindled in the king's eyes. "For me? Specifically? Does that mean she remembers…?"

"I'm afraid not, Your Majesty. She asked only for..." He cleared his throat awkwardly. "...for that nice old man who keeps coming to visit her."

King Ulrik visibly deflated. "Very well. I will be right there." As he rose to his feet, Elsa did likewise in a show of respect. Kristoff pushed himself away from the wall to stand fully upright, clasping his hands together behind his back.

"Pardon the interruption," Ulrik said to Elsa. "I shan't be gone long. In the meantime, if there is anything you need – food, drink, or what have you – do not hesitate to ask. Someone will see to it immediately." With a curt bow, he strode swiftly through the room, passed through the doorway, and disappeared down the hall.

Elsa remained standing for a long while, staring at the empty doorway. She finally turned away, but she did not return to her seat. Instead, she walked around the table and came to a halt directly in front of Kristoff. Leaning in closely so that only he could hear, she whispered, "Well, what do you think?"

"What do I think? About what?"

She glanced quickly toward the door again, where the lieutenant still stood, eying them both warily. "Do you think that Grandpabbie might be able to help Queen Olavine?"

Kristoff blinked, his mind racing. It had never occurred to him that anyone might look to him to help solve a foreign kingdom's problems. "Um... I don't know. Maybe. Like I said before, I don't really understand that much about how his magic works."

"Well, when we went to ask him about getting Anna's memories back, he said that it was easier to restore erased memories than altered ones, right? It sounds like the queen was simply made to forget decades of her life, so there might be a chance that he could restore those memories. Does that seem possible?"

Kristoff scratched his chin, then shrugged. "I really can't say. We're talking about an awful lot of memories. I don't think Grandpabbie has ever tried anything that complicated before. Maybe he can, and maybe he can't. Even if you actually asked him directly, I'm not sure he'd know for sure until he tried."

"But would he be willing to try? If we did ask him to help her, do you think he would?"

Kristoff only had to consider the question for a second before he nodded. "Yeah, I think so. But Elsa, we can't afford to go all the way back there now! We've already lost precious time. I feel for King Ulrik, I really do, but we have to think about Anna. If that's what the Snow Queen is capable of, if she can do that to Queen Olavine that easily, then… then..." He swallowed, unable to complete the thought.

"I know." She reached up and placed a reassuring hand upon his shoulder. "And I agree, we can't go back ourselves. But that means we'll have to give them directions to the valley instead. Would that be a problem?"

Now he looked uncertain, and his answer came out slowly at first, as if he didn't know what each word was going to be until he said it. "Grandpabbie always said that they weren't really hiding up there in the mountains. Trolls simply prefer to keep to themselves and not get wrapped up in other people's business. They just so happen to have a history with the rulers of Arendelle, who gave that valley over to them a long time ago. They still feel a deep obligation to try and return that favor when needed. But a stranger from a distant kingdom…?"

"They will still be doing a favor for the Queen of Arendelle," Elsa replied, quietly but firmly.

"I know, it's just… Trolls have long lives and long memories. They pass on tales that have been retold through so many generations, even they aren't sure how old some of them are anymore. But they never forget them, and they remember that humans weren't always so friendly to their kind. There was a reason why they needed a new place to settle way back when. They had been driven out of their ancestral homelands by a war that shouldn't even have involved them, and they were forced to flee to the south to avoid what could have been an even greater tragedy.

"That's why, even to this day, the trolls have little love for soldiers, and… Well, you've seen the state King Ulrik's in right now. He's put his entire kingdom on alert, ordering his men to stop any travelers on the road that even look like the Snow Queen. And if our friend there is any indication," he grumbled, jerking his chin in the lieutenant's direction, "they aren't exactly the most restrained bunch either. If the king marches into the valley escorted by armed guards and all that..." He shuddered and shook his head.

"What if it was just a small party? Minimal escort along the road, with the king and queen entering the valley by themselves. Please, Kristoff! We can't just leave Queen Olavine like this. If there's anything we can do to help, we have to try." When he continued to hesitate, Elsa played her final card.

"If it was Anna, wouldn't you want someone to do the same for her?"

Kristoff sighed, but nodded. "Fine. Yes, that will probably work. We might also want to consider writing a letter that he can present once they get there, so that Grandpabbie will know we really were the ones who sent him."

"Good idea. I can do that."

"Might be better if I wrote it."

"Why?" Elsa asked in surprise. "I know I haven't been queen all that long, but I've already had to write more than my fair share of such things. Even an actual recommendation letter or two, I think, though it's honestly hard to keep track of all the paperwork sometimes. Anyway, I'm quite certain that I could..."

"Can you write in troll runes?"

"Um… no. But surely he knows how to read..."

"Does Grandpabbie recognize your handwriting from the years he spent _teaching_ you to write troll runes?"

"Oh. Well, no, I suppose he doesn't."

Kristoff crossed his arms, looking ever-so-slightly smug. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "You can sign it, if you'd like." The small smile that accompanied his offer was simply too much for Elsa. Lifting one finger, she thrust it right up under his nose and was just about to tell him that it wasn't too late for her to change her mind and order him to accompany King Ulrik back to Arendelle, but she did not get the chance. King Ulrik chose that precise moment to reenter the room.

"My apologies," he said, his voice leaden. His face, if it was possible, was more despondent than ever. "I'm afraid this whole business might be even more confusing for the queen than it is for the rest of us. After all, when she looks around, she finds herself surrounded by the faces of strangers. Few of those she remembers are still here, and even those are barely recognizable after all these years. And then, when she looks at her own hands…"

He shook his head sadly. "We've taken to telling her that she's been ill, that the changes are merely a symptom of her disease, and that she'll get better soon. It has the advantage of not being too far from the truth, I hope. Even so, I've had all mirrors removed or covered. I fear it would simply be too much for her if she were to see her own face. As far as she knows, she's still a young girl and..."

He broke off again, and this time, both his words and his stride were interrupted. He hadn't even managed to make it halfway across the room, but now he simply stood there, looking woefully lost, as if he'd forgotten not only what he'd been saying but why he had even come into the room at all. He was clearly struggling, uncertain what he ought to be doing or even what he should be feeling. The wife he had loved was gone, and yet she still lived. He could not properly grieve or mourn for her, yet neither could he pretend to go about his business as if nothing had changed. Elsa thought he seemed almost like a ghost, trapped between this life and the next, too frightened to give himself wholly over to either.

Glancing up at Kristoff, who nodded his encouragement, she stepped forward. Placing her hands lightly atop one of the chair backs in front of her, she addressed Ulrik across the breadth of the table.

"Your Majesty," she said, trying to imbue her voice with something like reassuring confidence. Slowly, he turned to look at her, his haunted eyes clearly seeking answers that he had not been able to find anywhere else. Fighting not to let his pain drown her as well, she reached back into her own memories – not of her father this time, but of her mother and the caring compassion that always seemed to flow from her like warmth from a fire. Hoping there was some bit of that inside her as well, she tried to concentrate as much of it as she could into her smile.

"Your Majesty," she said again, "I think we might be able to help."

* * *

 **A/N:** **I was partway through Chapter 15** ** **w** ** **hen my writer's block hit****. However, ****I was able to bring that chapter to completion** ** ** **t** his past week, s**o there's at least one more weekly update still to come. Beyond that, we'll just have to wait and see.**


	15. Lonely and Forgotten

Some part of Anna realized that, under different circumstances, she might have found this journey to be incredibly enjoyable.

Even when she'd been little, Anna had dreamed of getting out and seeing the wider world beyond Arendelle, and nothing in the intervening years had changed that. If anything, they'd only made the urge stronger. Thirteen years confined within the castle had stoked her curiosity while preventing her from indulging it. Listening to Marie talk about traveling with her parents to many of Europe's prominent port cities had given Anna a chance to vicariously taste a little of the outside world, but in the end, it had only left her all the more eager to experience some of it for herself.

No sleigh ride would ever take her to Paris or London or Rome, but that didn't change the fact that this was still the farthest she'd ever been from her home. And while she had much on her mind that made it difficult to appreciate fully, there was no denying that the ever-changing scenery was quietly tickling her old curiosity again. The landscapes that came to meet them often reminded her of various places around Arendelle, with their mixture of half-forested mountains, small lakes and broad fjords. Yet they were always different enough to make her wonder what mysteries might lay hidden just out of sight.

This was doubly infuriating, because the similarities made her long all the more to be back among the more familiar places and faces of home, while the differences left her wishing she could stop and explore. Being unable to do either was almost intolerable, and never more so than when they passed within sight of a village or town. Natural beauty was wonderful and all, but the real reason Anna had always wanted to travel was to meet new people and learn everything she could about them.

There was always so much to learn, too. Even in a small community, people could be so very different from one another. Go a mere village or two away, and you might encounter an entirely new set of customs and traditions. Travel far enough, and you would find new languages, new cultures, new styles and food and architecture! Those were what Anna wanted to see. She wanted to get to know the people – to talk with them, learn to understand them, and make new friends among them.

Instead, she was stuck with the one person who was even more of a cryptic riddle than her sister had been during all those years when she had hidden behind her bedroom door.

At first, this hadn't really been a problem. Anna had been far too angry to care very much about getting to know this so-called Snow Queen. Their conversations had mostly involved a good deal of posturing intermixed with attempts at mutual intimidation. Much as she hated to admit it, Anna couldn't deny that she had ended up rather badly outmatched in that arena. Perhaps this was not completely surprising, considering that she'd had little enough opportunity to practice such a skill prior to this incident.

As their northward flight had continued and her every effort at shaking her captor's seemingly impenetrable poise somehow managed to backfire, she had vowed to simply hold her tongue. Why surrender any more ammunition into her enemy's hands? In fact, she would repeat that same vow to herself every single night as she drifted off to an uneasy and uncomfortable sleep. And then the next day, usually before mid-morning, she would inevitably end up breaking it.

She felt guilty about her constant failure to stick to even such a simple plan, but she couldn't help herself. The harder she tried to keep quiet, the more the silence gnawed at her. She'd always been the type of person who found energy in the company of others, and she rarely sought solitude except when she was at her absolute lowest. So try as she might, her attempts to retreat within herself simply ran too counter to her nature to succeed for long.

There was Olaf, of course, and she had tried to cope by talking with him as though the Snow Queen wasn't even there. But it was pretty much impossible to ignore her presence completely, given that she was never more than the length of the driver's bench away. It also seemed to Anna like the woman drank in every word she and Olaf exchanged, always extracting more from whatever they said than Anna ever meant to reveal.

Now here she was, still tucked tightly away in her corner of the seat as she watched the scenery slip by, the lack of verbal communication slowly irritating her like an itch between her shoulder blades that she couldn't quite reach. She knew that she didn't stand a chance of being able to keep quiet for much longer. So finally, she decided that fighting her instincts was a losing proposition. And if she was going to talk anyway, then she might as well make another attempt at talking to the woman beside her. Even if she let something else slip, could it really make her situation that much worse?

Besides, there was always the chance that the Snow Queen might unintentionally divulge some tidbit that Anna could potentially turn to her own advantage somehow. After all, hadn't she slipped up a little when she'd jumped to the conclusion that Elsa had modified Anna's memories? True, Anna couldn't see how she could possibly use that bit of knowledge to help her out of her current situation. Frankly, it only served to scare her all the more. But it did prove that there were secrets to be found if she was simply clever enough. Clever and extremely careful...

"Why my mother?" she blurted out in a rush.

There was an awkward moment's silence before the Snow Queen realized that the question had been directed at her. "Excuse me?" she asked in return.

"You said that you met my mother when she was pregnant with Elsa. You said that you… that you did something then that gave Elsa her powers. But why? Why our mother? You made it sound like it wasn't just some accident, that you chose her for a reason. You said you'd been watching her for a long time before then. Why? What made her so special to you?"

A second silence followed, deeper and more profound than the first. Upon hearing Anna's voice, Olaf had popped up from the cargo area, thinking she might have been talking to him. Now he looked back and forth between the princess and the queen, waiting for someone to speak.

"Why doesn't she answer?" he said out of the corner of his mouth as he leaned closer to Anna. "Do you think you said something to offend her? If you did, you probably ought to apologize. It's not nice to hurt people's feelings like that."

He turned to look at Anna and saw her staring back at him in wide-eyed disbelief. "It's not nice to _kidnap_ people either," she whispered sharply.

"Well sure, but you told me that we should always mind our manners at all times, so I just thought…"

"Not now, Olaf!"

"Okay, right. So, not always then. Does that mean we're allowed to be rude right now? Because if so, there are a couple of things that I could..."

But the snowman broke off when he saw Anna's eyes move away from his face and stare straight past him. He turned and followed her gaze, just in time to glimpse an odd pained expression that was already fading from the Snow Queen's features.

"A very long time ago," she said in a quiet voice, "I had a friend named Idun. She was quite lovely, both of face and of temperament. I suppose your mother reminded me of her, and that was what first piqued my curiosity. At least it was enough to make me consider her again in a different light."

"Different from what?" Anna asked cautiously.

"From those I had chosen before. Your mother was hardly the first, you understand. There have been many over the years. None ever worked, obviously, or I would have had no reason to keep trying. After each failure, I would promise myself, 'Never again.' But eventually, I would come up with another idea, some small change from what I had done before, and it would be enough to convince me to try just one more time."

And then she stopped, as though she had thoroughly explained everything that could possibly need explaining.

"I don't understand." Anna's confusion was as clear in her tone as in her words.

The Snow Queen sighed. "Hope has a strange way of overriding common sense," she said, "though I suppose hope might not be the most accurate word in this case."

"No, no." Anna was shaking her head. "I don't understand what it was you were trying to do with my mother, or with any of these other people who came before her."

The pale woman glanced her way, pursing her lips slightly as she did so. There was a look in her eyes that seemed eerily familiar. The minute Anna recognized it, she mentally braced herself. As a child, she had seen that same expression all too often upon her parents' faces. It was nearly always followed by two words she had always hated to hear: _It's complicated._ Even as a young girl, she'd quickly come to translate that as, _It's something_ _we don't want to_ _explain_ _to you_ _._

Well, what had she expected? Did she honestly think this Snow Queen would reveal all of her life's secrets so easily to the woman she had taken as a hostage? Even Anna wasn't that naive. So as she watched the other woman draw in a breath and part her lips to speak, she resigned herself to the inevitable non-answer that she was about to receive.

"What's the loneliest you've ever been?"

The reply caught Anna completely by surprise. Of all the possible answers for which she'd been bracing herself, a question like that hadn't even crossed her mind.

"I don't think that's any of your business," she said in mild indignation. After all, she had been trying to gain some insight into this curious woman, not reveal even more about herself. The Snow Queen already knew too much about Anna and her family for the princess's comfort.

"Quite right," the queen agreed. "My apologies. I was under the impression that we were having a conversation, which typically involves both parties answering questions and exchanging information. It appears that I was mistaken. And since I have no interest whatsoever in participating in a one-sided interrogation..." She shrugged, then turned her attention away and focused once again on the road ahead.

Anna bit her lip, feeling torn. She wanted answers, wanted to understand. If everything the Snow Queen had said was true, then she'd played a huge role in her family's history. She was the cause of her parents' fear, the reason the castle gates had been shut, the reason Elsa had needed to hide for all those years and why Anna had grown up without her sister.

Everyone she loved had been put through hell because of this woman. Now, after a lifetime spent wondering what they all had done to deserve it, she might finally have the chance to get some answers. If the asking price was merely that she provide a few answers in return, that would still be a bargain, wouldn't it? And yet the last time she had bared her soul to a stranger she'd only just met, it had led to near disaster. The Snow Queen seemed every bit as calculating as Hans had ever been; she simply did not bother to hide that side of herself. So how far could Anna truly trust her?

"The loneliest I've ever been was right after I was born."

Both women turned to look at Olaf, who had pulled himself up so that his chest – well, his middle snowball – was mostly balanced atop the seat back. His short legs were suspended in the air behind him, wiggling lazily up and down like a child stretched across a swing and pretending to fly.

"It's easiest to be lonely when you're alone, right? And when I first woke up on the North Mountain, there wasn't anybody else around. I mean, I sorta knew that Elsa had made me, so I figured she had to be around there somewhere, but I had no idea where she was. Then again, I didn't even know where I was! But either way, I suppose by then she had already left to go… left to go-o-o…"

He paused, then began humming to himself, a distracted look upon his face. "You know, I don't know why," he said absently, "but I suddenly have this really catchy song stuck in my head." He hummed a few more notes. "Yep, it's in there good. Don't you hate when that happens? The same tune just keeps playing over and over and over, and you just can't think of anything else, and no matter how hard you try, you really just can't let it..."

"Olaf."

"Hm-hm-hmm?"

Anna wasn't sure if he was indicating that he'd heard her or if he was still just humming along to music only he could hear. Considering that his head was jauntily bobbing to and fro, the latter seemed significantly more likely.

"Olaf!"

"Huh? What?"

"Are you finished?"

"Mm, I don't think so, but it's hard to be sure. I'm kinda stuck on the chorus."

"I meant with your story."

"Story? What story? Ohhhh, that story! Yeah, yeah! No, I wasn't." He shook his head, a broad smile on his cheerful face.

"So are you going to finish it?"

"Oh, okay, sure! I can do that." He was nodding enthusiastically, but soon slowed down as he began to look increasingly puzzled. "Um… where was I?"

"Elsa had just disappeared."

"Right, right! Well, I suppose she must have gone off to build an ice palace or something, but I didn't know that at the time. So I just had to pick a direction, and downhill seemed easiest. I started walking. And I walked, and I walked. And then I walked some more. Ooh, and then I lost my footing and slid down a frozen waterfall! No, wait. Actually, I slid down the waterfall first. I only lost my feet when I hit the bottom. It took me forever to find them again, too, and once I did, they just kept running circles around me!

"Anyway, I didn't see anyone else that whole time. There were a few birds and small animals who I tried to play with, but they were all a lot better at it than me. I didn't managed to tag any of them even once. So mostly, I just wandered around for a couple days, all by myself, until I finally stumbled across you and Kristoff and Sven!"

"Wait a minute." Anna frowned, thinking back to her ascent up the North Mountain. "When we first met, you didn't seem lonely at all. In fact, you were perfectly cheerful."

"Yep! That's because I wasn't lonely."

"But you just said that was the loneliest you've ever been."

"Well, yeah! That's because ever since then, I've had you guys. How could I be lonely with so many great friends so close by all the time? So that means I had to have been my loneliest before I met you, right?"

"Um, I guess so," Anna answered uncertainly. Whenever she thought she'd finally gotten a handle on Olaf's unique outlook on life, he would inevitably present her with some twist of logic that would leave her head swimming. The most unnerving part of it was that, if she thought about it long enough, it almost always ended up making a strange kind of sense.

"So you awoke with memories from before you were created?"

Anna started at the sound of the Snow Queen's voice. For a brief moment, her conversation with Olaf had felt so simple, comfortable, and familiar that she'd almost allowed herself to forget they weren't alone.

"Yup," Olaf answered, only to then immediately correct himself. "Only I don't know if they were memories, really, but I definitely knew things. Like, I could talk. And I knew what everything around me was. And I knew about summer and all things hot..." He trailed off with a wistful sigh.

"And you knew that Elsa had made you, even though you said she had already left by then."

The snowman nodded. "Uh-huh."

"What else did you remember?"

He considered the question for a moment. "I knew that my name was Olaf and that I liked warm hugs."

 _And yet he didn't remember me,_ Anna thought to herself. _He knew Elsa, and he knew that funny little line she'd made up when we'd played together as children, but I had to introduce myself. Did Elsa decide what she thought he ought to know? No, she couldn't have. When she made him, she didn't even know that she was capable of bringing her creations to life. Whatever memories she gave him had to have been completely by accident._

 _So what must she have been thinking when she made him? Was she still scared? Relieved? Lost?_

 _Lonely?_

"The loneliest I've ever been was after my parents died."

She spoke so softly that her words were almost lost beneath the sounds of the sleigh and the bears that still pulled it onward. Yet it did not go unnoticed by the Snow Queen, whose keen ears always seemed to pick up on every little nuance and detail in even the most casual of comments. She turned to look at Anna, an unreadable expression on her face.

"I was only fifteen," Anna continued quietly, "and I didn't really have any friends my own age. Whenever I got too sad or depressed, I'd always known that I could count on Mama and Papa to help me through it. But suddenly, they weren't there, and I… I didn't know what to do. I didn't know who I could turn to. I was feeling so many things all at once: pain and fear and sadness and grief and anger and… and shame. I was ashamed because, as much as I missed my parents, I was furious at them for leaving me.

"I don't think I could have explained it all then. Even if I could have found the words, just thinking about trying to make someone else understand everything that was eating me up inside only made it hurt all the worse. So I went to the one person to whom I wouldn't need to explain anything, who would already know because she had to be feeling exactly the same things that I was."

Though she was staring down at her knees, she felt Olaf lay his spindly fingers upon her shoulder. "Elsa?" he asked. She nodded.

"I thought for sure she would respond then. For the first time in years, I knew we had something in common. I knew she had to be hurting every bit as much as I was. I think just being able to share that would have helped us both so much. But then she didn't answer, and I…"

Anna's voice trailed off as she silently berated herself. Any talk about her family felt risky, but if she wanted to learn about the Snow Queen, then it looked like some risks were going to be necessary. Even so, she shouldn't have allowed the topic to stray to her sister so quickly. She didn't need to give her abductor any more information about Elsa than she already had. And she certainly didn't need to give out the details about what Elsa's continued silence had done to her back then.

When even that terrible tragedy hadn't been enough to bring them back together, Anna had gone into a kind of shock. That indescribable mess of feelings inside her had burned so hot that it had seemed to consume every ounce of emotional fuel she had until, finally, she'd been left unable to feel much of anything at all. She'd walked numbly around the castle, vaguely searching for anything that might trigger some sort of response, while at the same time unable to muster up enough enthusiasm to really care if she ever found it.

There was no doubt in her mind that she'd never been lonelier than during those dark days.

"I still miss them so much," she said, a little shudder running across her shoulders as she tried to conceal the feelings that were being rekindled inside her. "Hardly a day goes by when I don't think about them. I wonder how much different things would be if they were still here. Hans would never have dared to try and steal the throne. Elsa wouldn't have needed to become queen, and she wouldn't have frozen the entire kingdom. And you… you still wouldn't know about her powers. We'd all be safe, and nobody would have to risk themselves just to save me." She directed an angry glare at the Snow Queen, who looked back at her coolly for a moment before asking her next question.

"If you could have saved them," she said, "if there had been something you could have done back then that would have guaranteed their safe return from their voyage, would you have done it?"

"Of course!" Anna replied instantly.

"And how about now?"

Anna frowned. "What do you mean?"

There was the briefest of hesitations, then, "What if I told you that I have other magics beyond those you have seen so far? That I can reach back in time and tickle fate just enough to give you the chance and the choice. Knowing everything that you know now, would you ask me to use that power to save your parents?"

Anna opened her mouth to reply, but was surprised to find that no sound came out. For a split second, she thought that some new magic had robbed her of her voice. The next instant, however, she realized that was not the case at all. It was her brain that was refusing to supply the words. She simply stared at the blond woman as though she had just heard her utter the most heinous blasphemy imaginable. As she sat there, she felt her mind slowly straining to grind back into motion again.

So it was Olaf who broke the ensuing silence.

"But Anna," he began slowly, "you said that would mean that there wouldn't have been a coronation. The castle gates would still be closed, and Elsa would probably still be hiding in her room, and she never would have frozen Arendelle. Then you wouldn't have had the chance to meet Kristoff and Sven. And Elsa wouldn't have made me or Marshmallow or Polla. Everyone would be a lot lonelier. At least, I think I'd be pretty lonely if I'd never existed. So all of that would be bad." He looked at Anna uncertainly. "Wouldn't it?"

Still, she did not answer. In her head, she was struggling with the calculus of what-ifs. So many things had happened since her parents had been lost at sea. So many others might have happened. Good and bad arrayed themselves haphazardly across both columns. While she knew the tally of history, it was completely impossible to guess what could have been. Every Maybe walked hand-in-hand with a Then-Again. There were precious few certainties to help balance the ledger.

Yes, she'd finally gotten her sister back. Her dream of seeing the castle gates open again had come true. She'd made some wonderful new friends who already felt like they were part of her family. The secrets she had resented throughout her childhood had been brought into the light at long last. There was no denying that each and every one of these things was a goodness. And yet…

There was magic in this world; she had experienced that firsthand. Marvels the like of which she never could have imagined had happened right before her very eyes. Things that should not have been possible had somehow turned out to be real. So could it actually be possible to change the past? If there was some way, if magic that powerful did truly exist, would she use it? Would she be willing to sacrifice this new family she had made to get back the one she had lost?

How much would she be willing to trade to see her mother's smiling face in something more than just a portrait? What wouldn't she give to hear her father's calm, reassuring voice telling her everything was going to be alright? Was there a price too high for the chance to wrap her arms around them both and never ever let go again?

"Anna?"

Olaf's voice seemed to be coming from a great distance away. She was far too distracted by her own thoughts, attempting to answer all the questions that both she and the Snow Queen had thrust into her brain. And the harder she fought to arrive at a clear conclusion, the more dismayed she became by the fact that she could not.

For the most part, Anna had never been one to dwell upon the past. It wasn't in her nature to second-guess her decisions. Half the time, she didn't even bother to first-guess them! She had once told Kristoff that she liked to go fast, and that preference applied to more than just methods of transportation. She'd always felt that, even if you took a wrong turn somewhere along the way, it was usually quicker and easier to adjust course by continuing to move forward than by trying to stop and back up along the road already traveled. True, it could also be a somewhat riskier approach, but that only made things more interesting.

At the moment, however, her mind didn't seem able to move either forward or backward. She was stymied by the conundrum that the Snow Queen had placed before her. Back when her parents had first died, she would not have hesitated even for a heartbeat if there had been some way to bring them back. It had seemed then as though her life had been forever shattered by the loss. Of course she would have taken any chance, however slim, to put the pieces back together again.

But now, nearly four years had passed, and look where those years had taken her. In many ways, she could barely recognize her life compared to what it had been then. She wasn't lonely anymore. She was happy. She was free. She was in love. There was simply no denying that her life was better in almost every way imaginable!

Almost every way.

Would she give all that up to bring her parents back from the dead? Could she? And if she didn't, could she live with herself knowing that she had selfishly chosen her own happiness over their lives? Smiling faces flashed before her mind's eye. Her mother. Her sister. Her father. Kristoff. Which meant more to her? How could she possibly choose?

The first tears spilled from her eyes and ran silently down her cheeks. She turned to look at the Snow Queen, fighting to keep her lip from trembling. Her best efforts, though, could not entirely keep her voice steady when she spoke.

"You can't do that, can you? You can't really change the past. If you could, you wouldn't have needed to wait until now to try and take Elsa. You could have come for her when she was still young, like you said you should have. Right?" Anna had wanted her tone to be defiant, but she'd not been entirely successful. Despite herself, a poignant note of hope had crept in as well. Part of her could not help but grasp frantically at the crazy notion that such a thing as changing the course of time might actually be possible. But what would she do if it was?

The Snow Queen gazed back at Anna for a moment before giving a short shake of her head. "I cannot. Such power is beyond any magic that I have ever encountered, and I have encountered a great deal. No, the past cannot be changed, no matter how much we might wish otherwise."

Anna felt a surge of relief flood through her, followed immediately by a wave of guilt. Any need to make a decision had been lifted from her shoulders. Yet should she feel so grateful for that? Where was the disappointment that should have come from realizing that she could not, in fact, save her mother and father? And what did its absence say about her?

Given the circumstances, it was not at all surprising that both of those emotions quickly gave way before a rising bubble of something considerably simpler and far more straightforward.

"Then why?" Anna snapped angrily. "Why taunt me with a hope that you knew wasn't real? Did you just want to see me cry? Well, fine then. Here, I'm crying! Why shouldn't I? I miss them so much, and I will never see them again. But I'd made my peace with that. It wasn't easy, but I did it. Now you come along and make me think, just for a minute, about everything it would mean to have them back again. Then you rip that away from me, and it's like I've lost them all over again. So of course I'm crying!"

"You were crying before I told you that I could not bring them back," the Snow Queen said quietly.

"That's not the point!" replied Anna, her temper flaring all the hotter. "You just toy with people like they're playthings! You and your little mind games, trying to scare me or something. Breezing into Arendelle and acting like my sister is lost property that you just forgetfully left behind. Using your magic on my mother to… to do something to Elsa before she was even born! You have no right to treat people like that!"

Anna's nostrils were flaring with furious indignation, even while tears continued to leak out of the corners of her eyes. She glared at the pale woman beside her, as if daring her to deny or in any way take issue with any of the accusations that had just been flung in her direction.

"How well do you remember your parents?"

"What?" Anna asked, feeling completely wrong-footed at the unexpected response. "What kind of a question is that?"

"A simple one."

Anna scoffed. "Well, I'm not interested in playing your games anymore. I'm done answering your questions." She crossed her arms irritably, sitting up straighter and looking determinedly at anything but her captor's face.

"Have their faces begun to fade yet?"

Her eyes twitched. The impulse had lasted less than an instant, but it had taken a huge exercise of willpower to keep herself from glancing back at the Snow Queen again. Anna refused to give her that satisfaction. Instead, she stared stonily at the scenery again, watching the snow-covered landscape slip by.

"You have paintings in your palace, I'm sure, so perhaps those memories will linger longer. But what about their voices? Can you still remember what they sounded like? Can you remember the last words they said to you? Do you recall their particular smells? No doubt you knew them well back in the day, when they would wrap you in their arms and hold you close. Or what about the feel of their lips upon your cheek, your forehead, when they kissed you goodnight?"

Anna still refused to say a word. But the tears that had begun flowing anew were a sufficiently eloquent answer all on their own. For she could not remember. Try as she might to hold on to them, small pieces of her parents' lives had been slowly slipping away from her, lost somewhere amid the inexorable passage of time.

And the worst part was that she didn't even notice them when they disappeared. Only from time to time, when she would stop and try to remember some particular little detail, would she realize that it had vanished. Then she would feel a splinter of grief stab at her heart, a tiny reminder of the wound it had taken when she had finally been forced to accept that the _Voloe_ and all those aboard it would never return to Arendelle's harbor again.

Like her parents, the memories had vanished without a trace somewhere beneath an endless sea. And in both cases, she was left with nothing but emptiness over which to mourn.

"You grieve for the memories you have lost," the Snow Queen continued, her voice surprisingly quiet and gentle, "but they are not the true cause of your pain. The ache comes from knowing that you used to remember. Loss only hurts because you can recall what it was like to have that which is now gone. Without that knowledge, there would be no suffering. You cannot miss what you never knew you had."

Anna stubbornly kept her face turned away from the Snow Queen. So it was that she did not realize the woman was leaning toward her until she felt something brush lightly against her temple. The stabbing pain that followed made her gasp. As she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, she heard whispered words drift past her ear, though they barely registered through the sharp, cold agony inside her head.

"I remember everything."

When she at last opened her eyes, Anna found herself looking at the world through a blurry haze. Lifting her hands to her face, she scrubbed away the tears until everything finally swam back into focus. Blinking, she looked around as if surprised by her surroundings.

"Anna? Anna, are you okay?"

Olaf had once again pulled himself over the bench back and dropped down onto the seat beside her. He stood there now and looked up at her, deep concern apparent upon his expressive face. One of his hands reached out to rest upon her forearm in an apparent attempt to comfort her.

"I'm fine, Olaf," she said with a smile. "Or as fine as I can be considering that I've been kidnapped by this crazy woman." She shot a nasty look at the Snow Queen, who had once again returned her attention to the road before them.

"Oh," the snowman said, though his voice suggested that he wasn't entirely convinced. Nevertheless, he turned and sat down right beside Anna, his twiggy fingers clasped in his lap. He stole a few sidelong looks at his friend, as though checking to see if she might not change her mind about how she was feeling. That did not seem likely to happen, though, and since the conversation between the two women had apparently come to end, he eventually decided to interrupt what seemed to him to be an incredibly awkward silence.

"I wish I'd had the chance to meet them," he said thoughtfully. "You and Elsa have both been so nice to me, after all, so it really would have been great to have gotten to know the rest of your family, too!"

Anna smiled again, but there was a curious lift to her eyebrows as she looked down at him. "I'm not sure I understand," she admitted. "Who is it that you wanted to meet?"

Olaf gazed up at her, his own confusion clearly visible. "Um, you know… Your parents? Your mom and dad." All he got back was a blank stare. "You were just talking about them!"

Anna shook her head. "No, I wasn't," she denied flatly. "I couldn't have been. I never knew my mother and father. It's always been just Elsa and me for as long as I can remember. Well, except for all those years when Elsa wasn't speaking to me, of course. Then it was mostly just me. But I knew she was still there anyway, and that was what really mattered."

The snowman's mouth fell open as he stared at Anna. "But..." He turned to look at the Snow Queen, who did not look back. "But..." His head swiveled this way and that as he tried, with no great success, to make sense of what had just happened.

This time, it was Anna's turn to ask, "Olaf, are you alright?"

"I don't know," he said after a long pause. He wrapped this thin arms across his chest, glancing up at Anna one more time. "Maybe… maybe I'm just feeling a little lonely." Then he looked down again, and his next words were pitched so low that it seemed as though he was speaking to his feet.

"At least... I really wish Elsa was here."

* * *

 **A/N:** **Yeah, looks like I'm going to need another hiatus to get myself back on track again. Something just feels off at the moment, though I can't quite figure out what exactly. Hopefully, stepping completely away for a while will help clear things up, like it did between _Memories_ and _Reclaim_. So until that happens... expect me when you see me!**


	16. Men at Arms

**A/N: It's been nice, taking a break from regular postings. I've enjoyed being able to write at a more leisurely pace. I've even been able to get somewhat back to feeling like I'm writing for myself again. In fact, I was tempted to just finish the entire story that way, then post the rest of it all at once, but I was afraid people might think that I had simply abandoned it. So, now that I have several chapters** **stockpiled, I've decided to start sharing them again. Hopefully, they will have been worth the wait.**

* * *

Ragnarr sat atop a large rock that jutted up through the surrounding snow. His eyes were focused on some indeterminate point far down the river, and his mouth was drawn down in a shallow frown. Together, these gave him the appearance of a man deeply distracted by thought, though such an evaluation would have been only half correct. He was certainly thinking, but he was not distracted.

Around him, the encampment murmured with quiet efficiency. He listened to the noises the men made as they went about their duties: the rasp of metal as they checked equipment and cleaned weapons, the crackle of cook-fires that were always carefully tended to ensure that smoke was kept to a minimum, voices engaged in low conversations. In short, it sounded like a group of experienced soldiers taking reasonable care not to announce their presence to the world.

Ragnarr heard more. He could detect its presence, however subtle it might be. There was an undercurrent of impatience in the air – the disquiet that settles upon men of action when inaction is forced upon them. Minor grumbling had begun to crop up here and there among the soldiers' words, though not to the point of insubordination. Footsteps were a shade slower than they had been a few days earlier, as if the walkers had decided that there was little need for them to rush while their leaders were apparently in no hurry.

It was not enough to cause Ragnarr to be concerned about a breakdown in discipline. He knew that these men were sufficiently well-trained that he needn't worry about that. And he understood their frustration. After such a long march, to now be forced to sit almost on the doorstep of their destination and wait was undoubtedly irksome. There had been a time, decades earlier, when he would have been raging at the delay himself.

His long years of exile had taught him a few things, though, and patience had been one of them. It had become clear early on that any plan to retake Arendelle would require careful planning and the slow forging of many alliances. The need for ingratiating diplomacy had grated upon him mightily at first. He'd had little skill for it, and more than once, it had been all he could do to keep from grabbing those puffed-up politicians and spoiled aristocrats from the continent and shaking them until they agreed to his demands. His temper had seen to it that those early attempts to curry favor and obtain some shred of influence had failed miserably.

Still, whatever else he might be, Ragnarr was no fool. He'd soon come to realize that his circumstances had changed far more than he'd first imagined. The allies he had thought would come to his aid were, in fact, not so eager to help as he had anticipated. Truth be told, they wanted little to do with a former king who now had no power or authority left to his name.

Once he understood just how far he had truly fallen, it had then become clear that, if he wanted to change his fate a second time, he would have to change his approach as well. There would be no shortcuts, no swift roads back to his former life. He'd had to husband every last scrap of influence he still possessed, spending it only when he could see a way to gain a bit more in return. The frugality had been tedious and exhausting, but it had also been an excellent teacher. What his younger self would have considered an insufferable delay, Ragnarr now viewed as the time necessary for his careful investments to properly mature.

Some who knew him might have said that he had mellowed with age, that the passions that once had ruled him had subsided at last, and that wisdom had come forth to govern his actions instead. And if any of those same people had made that observation in his presence, Ragnarr would merely have smiled. Such words would indeed have spoken to what he personally considered to have been his greatest triumph in the last two decades.

They would have demonstrated most ably that, even after so much time spent forging useful partnerships and convenient friendships, he had never let anyone come close to knowing the man he truly was.

The fire still burned hot in his chest. His old angers continued to provide an endless supply of fuel, more than enough to keep the blaze going as strong as ever. The things that drove his actions had not really altered. He'd simply become far better at concealing a towering rage that, in his present situation, had become a distinct liability. It was a concession that he no longer minded all that much. After all, the greatest heat lies not in the flames themselves, but in the glowing coals that lay buried beneath them.

It was, he thought, not unlike a hunt. Most of the time was spent in preparation. You needed to assemble the right gear, make sure it was all functioning properly. You had to do your research and determine where you were most likely to encounter your quarry. You searched for tracks, you laid your traps. You made critical decisions: should you pursue your prey or learn its habits and then let it come to you? The time between the sighting of your target and its decisive end was miniscule in comparison. Yet, if you gave in to impatience at that last moment, everything that had come before would be wasted.

So now he sat and he waited. After twenty-odd years, he could manage a few days more. It would not do to squander all that careful planning and effort by acting too rashly, not now that his goal was nearly within reach.

"General."

"Major Nagel." Ragnarr did not turn to look at his adjutant, yet he could still hear the man's salute. The snow that had drifted around the rock muffled the click of heels, but the crispness of the officer's voice telegraphed all proper military respect.

"The dispatch you have been waiting for has just arrived, sir."

Ragnarr lowered his head and turned just enough to be able to focus on the major out of the corner of his eye. He extended one hand, into which the major placed the slim packet of papers. Breaking the wax seal, Ragnarr unfolded them and began to read, his brow knotting as he concentrated upon the words.

When he had finished, he folded the sheets back into a tight square, then lifted his head and gazed down the river. His right hand rested atop his knee and rocked idly back and forth, tapping the corner of the packet against the inside of his leg. The thoughtful look returned to his face as he considered what he had just learned.

"I have said it before, Major. In any campaign, reliable intelligence can be the difference between victory and defeat. That is why I chose to halt our advance upon the capital, that we might obtain one final update on the situation as it now stands. I do not begrudge the delay, particularly in light of this latest information. It has proven most… enlightening.

"I shall need some time to rethink the details of our next move. I do not want to squander the opportunity that has presented itself." There was a brief pause. "An hour should be enough, I think. At that time, I will want to address the officers. See to it that they are assembled at my tent. Also, make certain that all materiel is properly stowed and ready for transport. I expect we'll be breaking camp before nightfall."

"Yes, sir!" came the crisp reply.

"It has been a long journey," he said, still without turning to look at the younger man. "Longer for some of us than for others. Now though, only one slight detour stands between us and our goal – a small thing, really, but of great importance all the same. After we have seen to it, there will be no obstacles left in our way. Our path will be clear, and soon thereafter, Arendelle's right and proper ruler will again wear its crown."

"Yes, sir."

Ragnarr turned and, for the first time since their conversation had begun, looked directly at his aide. There was an ominous glint in his eye, but otherwise, his face remained remarkably impassive. "This kingdom once tried to erase me from its memory, Major, but I will see to it that it remembers again. For you see, even after so many years, I have not forgotten. And you may rest assured that I will also remember those who have aided me in putting things right. I think you ought to know that."

The officer inclined his head, but chose to hold his tongue. Ragnarr's dark eyes fixed intently upon him, as though attempting to measure the dimensions of his loyalty. The major met his gaze steadily, neither flinching nor blinking. After passing a minute or more in this fashion, he finally asked, "Is there anything else, sir?"

Ragnarr considered him a second longer before shaking his head. "You're dismissed, Major. I will meet you at my tent in an hour's time." The two exchanged salutes. Then the aide-de-camp spun round and strode off, leaving Ragnarr alone once more with his thoughts.

He looked out into the distance, toward the port city that harbored the royal palace. Despite all his hard-learned lessons in restraint, he could not deny his eagerness to see it again. He had lived in many cities across the continent. He had slept in the guest rooms of the rich and powerful, though there had also been times when he had made his bed in shabby apartments that had been so drafty and riddled with mouse holes, they'd barely been distinguishable from camping out of doors.

Rarely had he stayed in any one place overly long, for what he'd needed could not be found in any one place. He'd had to quietly pull and piece it together bit by bit. Earning a favor here required doing another there, and so on. It had been a laborious process to carefully combine them all into the mustering of the force he now led, which meant that he'd spent the last two decades as something of an itinerant wanderer. None of the places he had returned to each night had even meant anything to him. He had been homeless, a king without a kingdom.

Now, all of that was about to change. At long last, he would be coming home. He could feel the thought starting to lift the corners of his mouth.

Then a noise drew his eyes downward, and he found himself staring at the folded paper he still held in his right hand. It was moving again, but not in the slow and steady rhythm it had exhibited earlier when he'd been tapping it against his leg. Instead, it was shaking violently, telegraphing a subtler tremor that had suddenly taken possession of his extremities.

For a moment, he continued to simply stare, as if wondering whose hand this was that rested upon his knee. Surely, it could not be his own. Time had forced him to acknowledge that he was no longer a young man, but he had never experienced any of the palsies that sometimes came with the advancing of age. No one could look at him and claim that he was in any way frail. But if that was not the cause of this trembling, then…

With some effort, he steadied his hands enough to unfold the communique. His eyes darted over the scrupulously neat handwriting until they stumbled across one particular sentence, which they lingered upon despite his wishes. Again, the papers began to shiver. Again, he tried to force his hands to stillness. This time, he was not so successful.

With a snarled oath, Ragnarr crumpled the sheets up, crushing them within the grip of a single large fist. The violent tension in his forearm seem to at last impose some control over his treacherous appendage. Yet he sat there on his rock, pupils dilated and nostrils flaring madly, briefly feeling as though all he'd managed to do by clamping down on the shaking was to force it out of his arms and into his chest. Gritting his teeth, he stared at the clenched fist, squeezing it all the tighter, concentrating on the sensation as every single muscle in his arm tightened in response to his will.

Slowly, that same feeling of strength and solidity spread throughout his body. As his breathing returned to normal, he finally relaxed his death grip upon the offending papers. It wasn't exactly calmness that settled upon him so much as a stubborn determination that all things must bend to his will. He would not tolerate rebellion from anyone or anything, least of all his own person.

Besides, he could not afford the luxury of losing his focus now. His next moves would be critical, and a misstep might prove disastrous. It was important to plan for as many contingencies as possible, but one also needed the wisdom to realize that it was impossible to foresee all potential outcomes. Being able to adjust quickly when the situation suddenly changed was just as important. At that moment, he knew what his immediate priority needed to be, and he'd already begun to solidify his strategy for making it happen. Once that had been seen to, he would then have time enough to make plans for whatever might come next.

So he forced his mind onto the problem at hand. He considered his assets, weighed his options. The methodical nature of the exercise helped to center him, driving other concerns away as he systematically eliminated those possibilities that seemed most likely to lead to unfortunate outcomes. And, as the remaining pieces began to slot themselves into place, the scowl of consternation that had darkened his face began to fade.

By the end of the hour, when he finally rose and marched off to join his officers for a discussion of the last tactical details, it had been replaced by a look of savage triumph. There were no certainties in war; he knew this. There were, however, probabilities, along with a myriad of ways to help swing them this way or that.

And unless he was highly mistaken, fortune, fate, and perseverance all seemed to be conspiring to stack the odds in his favor. It would only be a matter of time now before they all saw him seated once again upon the throne of Arendelle.

• • •

Guardsmen walked the narrow paths atop the castle walls, much as they had done for centuries. There was no denying, however, that these patrols had taken on an air of ritual and formality in recent generations. Arendelle had managed to weather the turbulent times with remarkable adroitness. Its isolated location, nestled as it was between the mountains and the sea, had helped to secure peace from external threats. At the same time, the prosperity brought to its shores by its impressive mercantile fleet had kept civil unrest to a minimum.

Things had gone particularly well for the kingdom during the reign of King Agdar. True, the mysterious isolation of the royal family within the palace walls had caused a great deal of anxiety at first, particularly given its sudden and inexplicable onset. But when chaos had not followed the closing of the castle gates, and when the flow of goods and wealth had continued with nary a hiccup, the citizenry mostly decided to shrug it off as one of those peculiar eccentricities that seemed to be the exclusive purview of royalty. Certainly, it was preferable to the violent outbursts of temper that had so often characterized the previous king. So, while there had been much talk and speculation regarding the oddness of it all, it was generally deemed a minor price to pay in exchange for the kingdom's stability and prosperity.

During that time, the Palace Guard had been an extremely well-disciplined unit, thoroughly trained and overseen by their commanding officer, Fritz Holberg. His personal loyalty towards the royal family – and toward the king in particular – had driven him to prepare his men for any situation they might possibly encounter. Surprise drills and unannounced exercises had kept them on their toes, even while facing the daily drudgery of walking the walls, watching for threats that had not been seen since before most of them had even been born.

It had been somewhat startling, then, how quickly that discipline had fallen apart following the deaths of King Agdar and Queen Idun. The shock of that loss had been enough to send all of Arendelle reeling. Both had been well-loved by their people, for despite their reclusive nature, they had not been entirely absent from public view. Still, their loss was felt with particular keenness among those who served at the castle, and the Guardsmen were not exempt from that grief.

Princess Elsa had, at that time, still been three years too young to take the crown. The unusually late age for royal ascension had been put in place far back in the kingdom's history after the nearly ruinous reign of Ióhan the Young, and it had persisted even until the present day. So it was that the duties of day-to-day governance had fallen to the appointed regent, Vendel Dyrdahl, until Elsa could finally come into her own.

It had been Dyrdahl who, with surprising speed, had moved to disperse the seasoned Guardsmen to other posts throughout the kingdom. Fearing that the vacant throne would be a temptation too great for some to resist, he had proclaimed the need to distribute the best and the brightest of Arendelle's soldiery to places where they would be better positioned to help thwart an impending invasion. The castle and capital, he felt, ought to be able to rely on the protection of their mighty siege walls to secure the safety of those ensconced within. Then-Lt. Colonel Holberg himself had avoided reassignment only because Princess Anna had appealed directly to her sister on his behalf.

Almost immediately after accepting her place on the throne, Queen Elsa had moved with an alacrity equal to the former regent's, undoing what he had done by once again strengthening the Palace Guard. Unfortunately by that point, its former members had made themselves indispensable at their new postings, rising through the ranks as they demonstrated the skills they had learned during their time in the Guard. Having thus become impractical to simply recall them all, the queen instead promoted Holberg to full colonel and gave him the authority to seek out those candidates among the more junior soldiers that he felt had the greatest potential to help restore the Guard.

Now, as Colonel Holberg lay convalescing from the wounds he had sustained at the hands of the Snow Queen, his men did their best to do their commanding officer proud. Though they might have lacked the seasoned edge that had once characterized those who held their posts, they each had a burning desire to demonstrate that they were worthy of the faith that had been placed in them.

They also wanted to make up for their collective failure in the first real challenge that had been placed before them. Their commander injured, the princess abducted, the queen off to fight battles that should have been theirs to fight – these all represented a huge blow to company morale. Most of the men had taken time to visit Col. Holberg as their duties permitted, and he had assured each of them that they were not to blame. He swore that none of the training he had ever received, which he still vowed he would pass on, could have possibly prepared them to combat such magic. Even so, his words did little to lessen their feelings of guilt.

All of which meant that there was no inattentiveness to be found among those now stationed upon the ramparts. All around the castle and along the two wide wings of the shield walls, soldiers maintained a wary watch. They scanned both land and sea, resolved not to let another surprise reach the palace gates without proper warning.

Still, their efforts were hampered that morning by a patchy winter fog that had rolled in off the fjord overnight. On a clear day, a keen eyed watcher standing at the furthest extreme of the southern arm could look across the harbor and spot a waved hand signal from his counterpart on the northern spur. Now, though, even the next tower over continuously swam into and out of view as clouds of frigid water droplets swirled and eddied through the air.

Lanterns had been suspended from each of the viewing platforms, turning them into weak imitations of the full-fledged lighthouses that stood at the mouth of the harbor. Meanwhile, bells had been hung from the ceiling of each tower's overlook, allowing for the quick passing of signals despite the badly impaired visibility. Unfavorable weather was common enough in Arendelle that practices such as these had been devised long ago.

Yet despite these preparations, there was only so much the watchers could do to cope with the discomfort of their stations. The fog saw to it that those on guard duty were both cold and wet, and the small fires they kept burning in braziers within the towers did little to alleviate matters. Rime collected upon spectacles and the lenses of spyglasses, rather putting to lie the notion of a "watch." Instead, it degenerated into a constant struggle to see anything that was more than a few scant meters away.

It was a testament, then, to their dogged determination that they spotted the encroachers as quickly as they did. Through a gap in the fog, a pair of hardy sentinels spied a group of dark shapes, momentarily silhouetted atop the saddle between two mountains and moving with purpose. An accurate count was impossible under the circumstances, but it was clear that there were far too many figures to be a mere hunting party. So, after the briefest of deliberations, they raised the alarm.

The clanging raced from post to post with a speed and efficiency that would have made their commanding officer proud. The barracks nearest the mountain responded so quickly that the soldiers they dispatched met the oncoming men before they had barely descended halfway down the slope.

"Halt!" called Captain Strommen, the officer leading the capital's forces. "Your approach has been observed by the defenders of this city, and we do not take kindly to men of arms who would descend upon us unannounced. Lay down your weapons and explain why you have come upon us in this fashion. If you do not comply, then we will take steps to see that you do."

He maintained a firm grip upon his own weapon but did not raise it. He could afford that small concession to diplomacy. After all, he knew that his men had already formed ranks behind him and had fixed their sights upon their unexpected visitors. Even at this range, though, the abominable weather would make targeting far more difficult than it ought to be.

The fog was somewhat thinner this far up the mountain. It no longer blocked shapes completely from view, but it did render them blurry and indistinct. Colors were muted too, so that the world around them looked a bit like a badly smudged charcoal drawing. Honestly, he couldn't even say for certain that these strangers actually were armed. He'd only made that assumption based on shapes he thought he saw in their wavering shadows. Still, it seemed safer to err on the side of caution than to suffer far more serious consequences should he assume otherwise and be proven wrong.

Ahead of him, one of the hazy figures grew larger as it took a step forward. The captain's grip convulsively tightened. Then the silhouette stopped and raised its blurred arms above its head. Shown now against the gray light that filtered through the mist, there was clearly something long and ominous held between its hands. Slowly, the figure began to crouch, dropping down onto its haunches. With great care, it lowered its arms until they came to rest on the ground before it. Then the man-shape straightened and, by raising its hands high on either side of its head, demonstrated that both were now empty.

Strommen relaxed slightly, but he remained leery and alert as the other man took a second cautious step forward, then a third. As the distance between them lessened, details began to become clearer. The stranger was not especially tall; the two men were practically the same height. The advancing figure appeared to be somewhat slimmer in build, though, and it seemed as if he was favoring one leg over the other. An injury, perhaps? The captain was just wondering whether he was seeing the results of a recent wound or one that had imperfectly healed long ago when his eyes registered the color of the man's clothing.

He was dressed in the olive and black of the Arendelle infantry.

The uniform was torn in several places. Half of the seam at the left shoulder had been ripped apart, and a smattering of more ragged holes perforated the man's trousers. There were dark stains around some of these, including one particularly broad gash that seemed to clear up the matter of how recently the limp had been earned. The man's face was begrimed and looked incredibly weary, as though he was nearly asleep on his feet. Yet despite all this, he executed a respectable salute, which the captain returned almost automatically.

"What happened, Lieutenant?" he asked with a glance at the officer's rank insignia. "And what are you doing so far from your station? All of the men of our garrison are accounted for, and the nearest fortification is a good three day's journey by foot. Why have you and your men deserted your post?"

"There is no post left to desert, sir."

"What!"

"It's gone, sir. Destroyed."

"D-Destroyed? How? Details, man!"

The lieutenant, who had been doing his best to maintain the rigid posture appropriate when addressing a superior officer, nevertheless sagged a little beneath the weight of the tale he now needed to tell.

"We… We'd sent out our morning patrols, as usual, and most of them reported back on schedule. All except one. They were more than an hour overdue, and they had not sent anyone back to explain what was keeping them, as was procedure. So we sent out another party to attempt to meet up with them. If there was any trouble afoot, then they would be able to provide reinforcements. If nothing else, one of the riders would be able to bring back a report on the situation.

"Then we all waited, wondering what could have happened. These were only routine scouting expeditions. We all knew the land for miles around, so they couldn't have gotten lost. And rarely did we ever encounter anything more interesting than a wayward traveler in need of directions. That one of our parties should be gone so long without sending word was troubling.

"Naturally, the men began to talk. Maybe the patrol been caught in an avalanche. Maybe something had gone wrong when they were fording the river. Maybe one of them had fallen through the ice. With as wicked as this winter's been, something like that seemed most likely. The longer we waited, though, the darker the predictions became. So when the call went up that a lone rider was returning at full gallop, we were already fearing the worst. At least, we thought we were.

"We were wrong."

A shudder ran through the man from head to toe, and he closed his eyes as though trying to block out the visions that were clearly playing back inside his mind. Though the shaking quickly ceased, he kept his eyes shut when he began to speak again.

"The rider wasn't alone after all, but it wasn't any of our men who followed him. For an instant, we thought it might have been the queen, and we wondered why she had come upon us so suddenly and unannounced. But then, it became clear that it wasn't her, either.

"It was a… a demon. Or maybe a vengeful angel sent to deal out heaven's wrath. Whatever it was, she traveled neither by horse nor on foot. She seemed to just float though the air. It was such an impossible sight, none of us could do more than stare as she drew closer.

"Then she was upon us, and she brought with her the force of a hundred winters. The air grew so thick with snow that you couldn't see the man standing right next to you. Before we knew it, spikes of ice were cutting through us, sharper than any blades I've ever seen. And the wind! Everything was sent flying – weapons, carts, stones. Even men. And those that fell… they didn't get back up.

"I couldn't tell you how long it lasted. It felt like hours, and was made all the worse because we could do nothing to retaliate. We couldn't attack what we couldn't see. Even if we had tried, the wind would surely had sent all our shots wildly off course. But then, just as suddenly as it had begun, it all stopped. There was no sight of the woman anywhere.

"Unfortunately, that was not the only thing that had disappeared. All our fortifications – wood, stone, and iron – had been thrown to the ground. Most of it was covered in snow up to our knees, though pieces of rubble poked out here and there.

"So, too, did pieces of our comrades."

Captain Strommen, who had listened to this tale with an ever-deepening look of horror, now also closed his eyes. Bowing his head, his lips moved in a silent prayer. Then he looked up again. "When did this happen? How long ago?"

The lieutenant shook his head dazedly. "I'm not sure. The days sort of bled together. We spent so many of them combing the wreckage, looking for… That is, we were trying to find… Well, it's a poor graveyard, sir, but I'm afraid too many still lie buried there. We did all we could. Then we gathered what provisions and munitions we were able to salvage and began the march back to the capital.

"It's been slow going, what with the snow and the wounded. A trip that should have taken three days has instead been closer to eight." He hesitated, then opened his eyes to finally meet the other man's gaze again. "Not all of us were able to finish the journey. That... added to the delay as well."

Strommen found himself greatly respecting the younger officer's stoic attitude in the face of such unspeakable tragedy. Or perhaps the man was simply so worn down by shock and exhaustion that he had no energy left to waste on a show of emotion. Either way, to have led what remained of his unit this far under such conditions was an indisputably impressive display of courage. With a demonstration of leadership like this on his record, the lieutenant had a bright career ahead of him in the service, assuming he chose to remain enlisted after everything he'd just been through.

"And you have no idea why you were attacked?" he asked.

"The men at the gates reported that, according to the rider who returned, the scouting party had spotted the woman driving a sled. They wouldn't have paid it much heed except that it apparently was being pulled by two polar bears… and her passenger looked very much like Princess Anna. This was peculiar enough that they tried to stop her to find out what was going on. When she refused to halt, they fired a warning shot, and then…

"Well, the rider didn't have time to give any more details, but considering the onslaught that hit us, the rest seemed pretty clear. Even with the reinforcements we had sent, they would have been no match for that kind of power. We assume that, when he retreated to report on what he'd seen, she followed to make sure no additional troops would waylay her again."

A look of confusion crossed the captain's face then. "She just left her prisoner behind to pursue one lone soldier? How could she be certain that the princess wouldn't escape?"

The lieutenant heaved a bitter sigh. "I don't know, sir. We weren't exactly in a position to ask questions." Then he stiffened, shooting a startled look at the captain. "Wait, prisoner? Are you saying that… that the princess was…?"

Strommen nodded. "I'm afraid so, Lieutenant. Your men were not the only ones to have suffered through an encounter with this Snow Queen."

"Snow Queen?"

"Yes. No doubt you'll receive a full briefing back at the garrison, once you and your men have had your injuries tended to. And though I'm sure you're in no hurry to relive it, we will need all the details you can give us about everything you've been through."

"I… I ought to report directly to the palace. If this concerns the queen's sister..."

"Queen Elsa is not at the palace. She left days ago in pursuit of the princess."

"She… Well then, all the more reason I should deliver my report there, sir. If Queen Elsa has gone chasing after this woman too, then this concerns the safety of the entire royal family. Whoever is overseeing the kingdom needs to be made aware as soon as possible. I only regret how long it's taken for us to bring the news back to the capital."

"There will be time enough for that, Lieutenant. There is little any of us can do to help either the queen or the princess at the moment. Another small delay will hardly make any difference. You need to consider your duty to your men."

The lieutenant's face darkened, and he glanced over his shoulder at the mist-shrouded figures behind him. Then he limped forward until he stood directly before Strommen.

"Captain," he said in a low voice that would not carry. "Before we set out, my commanding officer made it clear that it was our job to deliver word of what we had seen directly to the palace. He said this not just to me but to every one of us. He knew the long road that we would be facing. He knew the state we were in and that it was unlikely we would all survive the journey. Even so, he wanted us to understand that, no matter what happened, at least one of us had to make it through, to carry back word of the brave men who gave their lives in the line of duty.

"That brave man himself now lies beneath a cairn of stones alongside the road we took to get here. The ground was frozen too solid to allow us to even give him a proper burial. So it falls to me to see his final order carried out, and I will be damned if I let him down. Sir." He added the last almost as an afterthought.

Strommen considered the younger officer intently. The set of the man's jaw and the determined steel in his eyes made it clear that his mind was well and truly set upon this course of action. Loyalty and leadership both. Yes, this man had the makings of an exceptional officer. And after all, word would need to be delivered to the castle one way or the other. If it would help to allay some small part of the trauma these soldiers had experienced, then fine. Their report could be delivered there directly.

"Very well, Lieutenant. You may accompany me to the castle straightaway, and together we will..."

"My men too, sir."

"Are you certain? Their wounds should be tended to, and I see no reason they all need to be present for this. Surely you can speak for them."

"I could, sir, but their courage deserves recognition as well. Besides, I think we all want to see this through. Completing this mission has been all that's kept some of them going these last few days." He paused and looked slightly embarrassed. "Well, that and, I suspect, hopes of a meal from the famed palace kitchens. We've been on scant rations for a while now, sir."

Strommen frowned. The request was certainly unorthodox, but after everything these tired soldiers had been through, it was hardly that much to ask. Of course, that assumed it was truly what they all wanted. Well, that could be determined easily enough.

"What say we let your men decide for themselves, Lieutenant. Those who wish may accompany us to the castle, but any for whom the journey has already proven long enough may end it at the barracks. It is closer, after all, and we will pass near enough to it on our way. There, we can provide beds and food, enough for all if need be. Neither will be as fancy as what they would find at the palace, but there will be plenty of both. Meanwhile, our medics will do all they can to treat the injured."

The lieutenant thought for a moment, then nodded. "Thank you, Captain, for both your understanding and your generosity. If I may have a minute, I will pass along your offer to my men and give them leave to choose as they will."

"Let them know that they will be treated with honor, whatever they each decide," Strommen said solemnly. "They have earned that much and more."

With another nod and a swift salute, the lieutenant turned and walked slowly back to what remained of his detachment.

• • •

It was a bedraggled procession that walked through the castle gates. Those who were able did their best to maintain a rudimentary formation, but a good number lagged behind, hobbled either by their wounds or by their efforts to support injured comrades. Yet, despite their haggard exhaustion, not one had turned aside as they had passed the barracks. Captain Strommen, leading the group, felt a great swelling of pride in his chest. No, they weren't his men, but they were stout soldiers all. Their courageous example left him feeling honored simply to be counted alongside them in the defense of their kingdom.

He had sent a runner ahead to alert the castle of their arrival and to convey the basic outline of all that had happened. Apparently, he was not the only one with a high regard for the bravery that these men had demonstrated. As they passed beneath the archway into the broad courtyard, they found themselves walking between two long lines of uniformed Palace Guards, all of whom were standing at attention.

The lieutenant – Strommen realized with some chagrin that he'd never gotten around to asking the officer's name – was walking beside him, eyes fixed straight ahead. Most likely, Strommen thought, he probably found this sort of attention a little unnerving. As a soldier, he would be far more accustomed to taking part in displays of honor than being the recipient of one. He had mentioned seeking recognition for his men, but he might not have considered that he would receive his fair share of it as well.

They came to a halt upon reaching the end of the two columns, though they were still some way from the palace doors. A small knot of people stood before them, all looking quite somber. Both the captain and lieutenant saluted smartly. One of the men in the greeting party took a step forward, waving his hand at them as he did so.

"No need for that, no need for that," he said. "At ease, gentlemen, please." His eyes ranged over the lieutenant's tattered uniform, lingering a little upon the dark stains that surrounded the worst of the rips. Then he looked up and peered between the two men, gazing at the equally unkempt soldiers arrayed behind them.

"It is terrible – truly terrible – what you and your men have had to endure," Dyrdahl said gravely to the lieutenant. "Had we but known, we would have sent assistance, of course, though as you have no doubt heard, I'm afraid we have had our share of difficulties as well. Even so, we will do what we can to see that you are all taken care of now and returned to full health as quickly as may be.

"Naturally," he continued, "we will want a full and detailed report of your encounter as soon as you feel up to the task. The more we know about this Snow Queen, the better chance we'll have of dealing with her should she return again. I do not know what measures we can possibly take against such magics, but I'm sure you will agree that we must take whatever steps we can think of to protect the kingdom from further tragedies such as those she has already visited upon us."

The lieutenant inclined his head in agreement, but said nothing. No doubt he was feeling intimidated at being addressed by such an important personage as Counselor Dyrdahl, Strommen decided. This role should have fallen to his superior officer. The poor man had likely never imagined himself in a situation such as this.

Dyrdahl was staring intently at the younger officer. He appeared to be weighing his next words, trying to decide how much he dared to ask of someone who had just lived through such an ordeal. Finally, he seemed to make up his mind that at least some answers ought not to be delayed.

"Were there any survivors of the original scouting party? Any at all who saw Princess Anna, who could tell us whether she was still safe?"

The lieutenant stiffened and his face became, if possible, even more devoid of expression. When he answered, his voice was flat and emotionless. "The rider who returned to us, the one the Snow Queen pursued, perished in the attack that followed. He managed to give a scant account of the events he had witnessed to the men at the gate. Shortly thereafter, he was impaled by a spear of ice."

He paused, then cleared his throat before speaking again. "There was one other, however. We found him on the trails shortly after we had set out to return to the capital. His injuries were severe and, had we not found him when we did, he would soon have perished. But he is also strong and stubborn. We tended to him as best we could, and once we'd finished, he joined us on our journey."

"He's here?" Another man detached himself from the group and stepped forward to stand beside Dyrdahl, a look of concern plainly visible on his face. "Did he survive the journey? Can he tell us what he saw?"

"Yes, sir, he is here. I'm afraid he took a rather nasty blow to the head, though. When we found him, he was completely disoriented. He'd been wandering the wilderness for days because he couldn't even remember the way back to our base. So I can't promise how much he'll be able to remember of what he actually saw."

The man's expression changed slightly. The concern remained, but there was now a hint of disappointment and lowered expectations as well. "I should still like to speak with him, assuming he's in any fit state. We've had no word since Queen Elsa left in pursuit of the princess. It would do my heart good – all our hearts, I suspect – to hear whatever he might have to say. Wouldn't you agree, Vendel?"

The counselor nodded. "Certainly. Kai is quite right, Lieutenant. If this man of yours is willing, then we would all be most grateful to hear from him, and sooner rather than later, I should think."

With a nod, the lieutenant turned and gestured back toward his men. The ragtag band parted until a path had been cleared back to a lone soldier who'd been been standing near the rear of the group. The strength that had been attributed to him was obvious, for he was tall and broadly built. The top of his head was wrapped in bandages. He kept it lowered, staring down at his feet as he shuffled forward in a most unsoldierly fashion. It spoke plainly to the severity of his injuries, and did not bode well for his likely mental state. He did not even remember to salute when he at last came to a halt between the two officers.

It was Dyrdahl who addressed him first, his voice pitched to what he apparently thought was a calming and reassuring tone.

"We know that you have been through terrible trials," he said, "and we honor you for your strength and courage. Undoubtedly, all you want now is a chance to rest and recover, and you'll be able to do just that very soon. First, though, we would just like to hear anything you can tell us about the encounter you had with the mysterious woman who attacked you and your comrades. Most importantly, did you see Princess Anna? Did she appear well? Was she unhurt?"

The big man did not look up, did not move, did not make a sound. For all the reaction he gave, he might not have heard a single word that had been said to him. Kai and Dyrdahl exchanged glances. Then Kai spoke, deciding to begin with something simpler and a bit more personal this time. In his warmest and most sympathetic voice, he asked, "What is your name, soldier?"

This did indeed elicit a response.

"My name?" the man repeated in a deep voice that was every bit as powerful as his body. "Why do you ask a question to which you should already know the answer? Ah, but perhaps you have forgotten. Allow me to remind you." And so saying, he let loose with a mighty roar that caused both Kai and Dyrdahl to jump backward in surprise.

An abrupt and tremendous commotion broke out behind him. Every one of the wounded soldiers suddenly moved with incredible swiftness and precision. Weapons appeared in all of their hands, even though only a handful had been displaying them a moment earlier. Knives and swords were at the throats of the nearby Guardsmen, whose weapons were unceremoniously ripped from their grip.

A number of the Guard had sufficient training and presence of mind to attempt to fight back. Somehow, though, it seemed as if the invaders knew exactly which ones would be most likely to put up a struggle, and they were ready for them. It wasn't long before those who'd dared to resist lay on the ground, either pinned beneath their opponents or else simply unconscious. In most cases, they were also bleeding badly. The rest stood dumbfounded as their own weapons were turned upon them.

"Well played, Major Nagel," said the tall man, turning his head slightly to direct his words to one side. "A flawless performance."

"Thank you, sir," replied the nameless lieutenant. He no longer looked dazed or exhausted as he straightened from the unmoving form of Captain Strommen that sprawled at his feet. "Shall I have the men secure the rest of the castle?"

"Yes, I think that would be wise. It is the next step in the plan, after all."

"Very good, sir."

"How...?" Kai stammered. "Who…?"

"Ah yes, we had not finished our introductions," said the man whose bellow had sparked the violence. Slowly, he raised his head. His dark eyes seemed to burn with an almost painful intensity. Behind his salt-and-pepper beard, his mouth twisted into something that was equal parts smile, snarl, and leer.

"My name," he said, every syllable dripping with menace, "is Ragnarr, King of Arendelle. You would do well not to forget it again."


	17. Swords Unsheathed

The garrison emptied in response to a second clanging of the alarm bells. This one had been cut ominously short, but not before the most critical bit of information had been relayed: Trouble at the palace. Yet when they arrived at the bridge before the castle, the soldiers found that they could go no further. The heavy wooden doors had been barred against them. The reason for this violation of Queen Elsa's standing orders that the gates should always be kept open was not immediately obvious. That it was related to the raised alarm seemed certain, but that helped little since the truncated alarm itself had been just as unclear. Its urgency, however, had been unmistakable.

Their commanding officer, Colonel Dokken, marched directly up to the gates and pounded fiercely upon them, calling out to those stationed inside to open the doors at once. This did not work. Still, the man had developed considerable lung capacity and the ability to project at an impressive volume thanks to years of bellowing at his troops. Apparently, he did not wish to see these talents wasted, for he continued to shout his demands long after it became clear that they were not being heeded.

At last, face beet red from his exertions, he fell silent but for the sound of his breath. With his chest pumping like a bellows, he stood there, glaring at the doors as though they had personally insulted him. Then he took several steps back, the men behind him parting to clear the way. Tilting his head upward, he looked to either side of the gates. Silently cursing the fog, which had begun to thin yet had not disappeared completely, he squinted in an attempt to peer through the dark gaps above the wall. The absence of the door wardens was odd enough. That he could discern no figures peering watchfully down at him from the ramparts was even more unnerving.

"Sergeant Langerud," he said in a more measured tone, "take three men over to the southern wall. See if you can get any information from the ones on watch who rang the bells. But stay alert. Obviously, something is not right here."

"Yes, sir," came the crisp response. It was followed by a few words of quiet discussion then the sounds of the quartet quickly making their way through their fellows and back along the bridge.

Dokken slowly pulled his eyes away from the opening between wall and roof. Turning his head, he let his eyes trace along the front of the castle. Off to his right, a tower jutted up, distending the wall slightly due to the way its circumference protruded outward. Beyond that, the front of the castle seemed to continue on, except that there was no longer any steeply sloped roof to provide shelter to those who might stand atop the wall. This was the point where the siege wall, descending from the mountainside, connected to the castle itself. And there, along the inside of the wall a short distance beyond that corner turret...

"Sergeant Vik."

"Yes, sir."

"There's a narrow strip of land, right below the end of the bridge there," he said in a somewhat hushed voice, indicating the spot where the bridge flared outward just before it met the castle. "I want you and two other men to drop down and make your way along the wall. On the other side of that willow, there's a large outcrop of rock and a spur that rises up to within a few meters of the guard walk. See if you can use it to climb onto the wall, then check if the tower door is bolted as well. I wouldn't expect the Guardsmen to be so sloppy as to leave it unlocked. Then again, I wouldn't have expected those manning the gates to abandon their posts either." He frowned. "Keep your guard up."

"Yes, sir," the sergeant repeated. Sparing no further words, he instead pointed to two enlisted men, indicating with a gesture that they were to follow him. With curt nods, they strode briskly forward. The three soldiers took one quick look over the side of the bridge. Then one by one, they each swung their legs over the short stone wall that edged the pedestrian walkway and dropped silently out of sight.

Dokken's eyes swung back and forth, alternately checking on the progress of Vik's small party then staring at the tall and unyielding gates. He did not like this situation in the slightest. Some small something had been nagging at the back of his brain ever since Captain Strommen had sent word about those soldiers whose approach had triggered the first alarm of the day. He would have accompanied that group to the castle himself had he not been closeted in a series of meetings, trying to put together a report on the readiness (or lack thereof) of the Arendellian military to protect the capital should the so-called Snow Queen decide to return. He had allowed himself to believe what the bureaucrats at the palace had been haranguing him about for days – that said report was of paramount importance and that other, more trivial matters would have to wait.

 _Should have known better_ , he inwardly berated himself. _Never have been good at politics and paperwork. So why on earth did I let that trump my instincts? Damn fool thing to do._

Of course, this whole business might be nothing at all. Some young soldier up on the southern spur, on edge after the morning's excitement, might've let things go to his head. After one set of mysterious figures had materialized out of the fog, perhaps a particularly overactive imagination had simply seen another strange something where there actually had been nothing at all. That wouldn't be so difficult to believe. Everyone had been on edge ever since the princess had been abducted right out from their midst. It might even be conceivable that the Guard had barred the gates while they investigated the source of the alert themselves, eager to make sure that no other potential threat would escape them. Maybe the bells had only been cut short because the watcher had realized his mistake.

The frown on Dokken's face deepened. An unacceptable number of mights and maybes were couched within that line of thought. Besides, too many things didn't add up. A false alarm should have been canceled by the all-clear signal. Even if the Guard had closed the castle as a precaution, why withdraw the men at the door? Better to leave them there so they could report on the situation and avoid just this sort of confusion.

The colonel did not know what was happening on the other side of these walls, but the more he considered the evidence, the more concerned he became about what seemed to be the most likely possibilities.

Movement above the crest of the willow tree drew Dokken's attention. In warmer months, the olive green of their uniforms would have blended in quite well with the tree's foliage. Here in the middle of winter, though, when a coating of snow and ice had turned the tree's fronds completely white, the cylindrical cap that popped up behind it was easily visible.

Dokken watched as the men climbed the slippery rock. Soon, they were all perched on a small, flat space atop the huge boulder. Had the three of them stood with their arms outstretched, fingertips touching, they could have reached from one side of it to the other. Instead, they crowded together, looking up at the section of wall that rose above them. After a few moments of determined deliberation, they appeared to agree upon a plan.

One man – given their matching uniforms and similar builds, it was difficult to tell which – stood with his back against the wall, crouching slightly. A second knelt down in front of him, intertwining his hands to form a makeshift stirrup, onto which the final man stepped. Pushing off from the ground with one leg and with the additional boost from his fellow soldier, he managed to get himself up onto the first man's shoulders. The bottom man slowly straightened his legs. As he did so, the soldier he was supporting stretched his arms high over his head, reaching as far as he could. When both men were at their fullest extent, the one on top was just able to curl his fingers over the lip of the wall.

Four arms strained, the two above pulling while the two below pushed upward against heavy boot soles. Once the top man got his elbows up over the edge, the going became easier. A few seconds later and he had scrambled up onto the walkway that the Guardsmen normally used to reach the watchtowers further up the mountainside. Pushing himself to his feet, he nodded down to the men on the rock below, then quickly covered the short distance to the castle tower. From where Dokken stood, the man disappeared from view behind the bulk of the tall turret. He watched and waited, counting off the seconds in his head and trying to decide how many it would take for the soldier to get an answer, one way or the other. How many would he need to let tick by before deciding that something had gone wrong?

He'd reached twenty-seven before the olive and black uniform appeared again from behind the occluding stone. A shake of his head and a broadly sketched shrug made it clear that not only had he been unable to gain access through the door but that his attempts to enter had apparently failed to provoke any response from within. It wasn't exactly an unexpected result, though it was annoyingly unhelpful.

Colonel Dokken was considering his next move – whether to recall the men or to send them along the guard walk to join Sergeant Langerud in investigating the source of the alarm – when the man on the wall suddenly turned to look back in the direction from which he had just come. It seemed as though he had heard something. Did this mean that an entrance into the castle had finally opened at last?

The next sound was heard by all. It was a sharp report of a kind all too familiar to every soldier there. Every head turned in its direction, which meant they all watched as Sergeant Vik, a startled look etched upon his coarse features, teetered, tipped, and then toppled backward off the rampart. A different noise – a brutal crack – marked the end of his fall

The next few moments were governed entirely by reflexes that had been honed through countless hours of drilling and mock battles. Weapons leaped to hand. Stocks were planted firmly against shoulders. Sights swiveled this way and that, seeking out a target upon which to fix.

"Tell your men to stand down."

Every shaft and barrel swung upward toward the source of the deep, booming voice. In so doing, the soldiers upon the bridge discovered that theirs were not the only weapons held firmly at the ready. The gap above the castle walls, which had appeared dark and empty such a short time ago, was now crowded with olive and black uniforms. On each side, grim-faced men targeted soldiers on the other, though there was a definite undertone of confusion among Dokken's troops. They had never expected to find themselves taking aim at fellow soldiers of the Arendelle military.

"What is the meaning of this?" Colonel Dokken shouted. If his voice lacked the weighty bass in which the order for their surrender had just been delivered, it nevertheless matched it easily in volume. "Why do you hold the castle against us, against your fellows in arms?"

"Because I question your loyalties, soldier," came the reply. Its tone was calm and unconcerned. The as-yet-unseen man might just as easily have been discussing what he would like to eat for dinner that night. "I fear you might feel that you owe allegiance to someone who does not deserve it."

"My men and I serve the rightful ruler of Arendelle," Dokken declared boldly. "Our loyalty is to Queen Elsa."

A heavy chuckle rolled down from on high. Then a shape moved, a massive figure that stepped forward from the shadowed recesses until it stood front and center. Among those upon the wall, it alone held no weapon. Indeed, its hands were clasped together behind its back as it glared down the length of its nose at the men below.

"Ah, but you contradict yourself. Your so-called queen is merely the daughter of a man who usurped the throne. The heir of an illegitimate king cannot be allowed to rule. Fortunately, the time has now come to correct that aberration. Arendelle's true and rightful king has returned."

Startled murmurs broke out among the soldiers on the bridge. Dokken could hardly blame them. He felt his own incredulity spread across his face. He did not want to believe his eyes, though what they now saw answered so many of his questions. The man was older, certainly. There was far more gray than black now in his hair and beard, and his face was decidedly more weathered. Yet there was no mistaking his powerful build, which somehow seemed to have defied the years. The intensity of his haughty stare remained similarly undiminished.

"Ragnarr," Dokken breathed.

Up on the wall, the tall man's face hardened. " _King_ Ragnarr," he corrected coldly. "I have put up with the loss of my proper title for too many years. Now that I have returned, I will not tolerate it any longer. All will show me the respect that I am owed as the sovereign ruler of this kingdom!"

The colonel glared back, doing his best to project the same steely determination that was being leveled at him. "I do not recognize the authority of any ruler who would order the cold-blooded execution of a soldier in his army for no crime greater than knocking on the door. If you were the true king, you would have had no need to bar the gates in the first place, for you would have had nothing to fear from the men under your command."

"I do not fear men who serve me loyally," Ragnarr replied, a dangerous note creeping into his voice. "I have learned to be wary of traitors, however. I have yet to determine into which category you and your men will fall."

"It seems to me," Dokken scoffed, "that you have surrounded yourself with traitors. Those men who stand with you wear the uniforms of Arendelle soldiers. That means they have sworn oaths to serve Queen Elsa, vows which they have today broken and..." He broke off suddenly, his eyes narrowing. The weak winter sun had finally risen high enough to burn off the remainder of the morning fog, at last giving him a clear view of the forces arrayed against him.

Dokken was a career military man. He'd joined the service as soon as he'd been old enough to enlist and had worked his way up through the ranks over many long years. It had seemed to him that the life of a soldier offered an ideal way to see more of the kingdom beyond the tiny homestead in which he had grown up. This eagerness had seen him changing posts often, until he eventually was able to brag that he had been stationed at every single one of them at one time or another.

Between those soldiers he'd served with, those he'd commanded, and those he'd reported to, he prided himself in having interacted in some capacity with a sizable portion of the kingdom's infantrymen. He also took pride in having a very good memory for faces. Yet none of the ones who now held him in their sights seemed at all familiar to him. To a man, they were strangers all.

"Your men are not sons of Arendelle," he said slowly. Even as he spoke, his mind was feverishly integrating this new understanding with the other scattered pieces of information he'd gleaned about the morning's events. His eyes quickly traveled over the tunics worn by the men upon the wall, picking out the various rips and holes that would never have been tolerated on a proper serviceman's uniform. He recalled the descriptions he'd been given of the state of the men that Captain Strommen had escorted to the palace.

A furious rage erupted in his chest as all the parts finally fitted together. He no longer needed to exert any effort whatsoever to match the intensity of Ragnarr's voice or bearing.

"You filthy coward," he seethed. "How dare you! You return from exile to retake your crown by force, yet you rely solely on treachery and deceit to do so. You lacked the courage to declare your intentions or face an honest fight. You had to masquerade in our uniforms, knowing it was the only way you would ever enter the capital, let alone the palace. Only now, when your trickery has allowed you to get close enough to stab at the very heart of Arendelle, do you dare reveal yourself.

"If you are truly looking for traitors, then I would suggest you find yourself a mirror, milord." Dokken nearly spat the last word, putting every ounce of bitter sarcasm that he could muster behind it. Then he called out in a clear and commanding voice, "Men, it's time to rid the kingdom of these trespassing vermin."

"I should think twice before you pull those triggers," Ragnarr said. His voice remained level, if singularly unamused. The changes in his face and posture, however, were dramatic. His thick brows drew down, knitting together and nearly fusing into one. His teeth bared themselves in a menacing snarl. He leaned forward, gripping the railing before him so hard that his knuckles became nearly as white as the snow they'd dislodged.

"With fools like you leading its troops, it's no wonder I was able to lead my men so far through the kingdom without being challenged even once. Do you think these are the only loyal soldiers in my command?"

"We will deal with the rest soon enough," Dokken promised.

"Did you stop to think," Ragnarr said, his voice now loud enough to drown out anything the colonel might have thought to add, "that there were more than just soldiers behind these walls when we retook the castle?"

There followed a moment of stunned silence, of almost willful incomprehension.

"You wouldn't," said Colonel Dokken.

"I would prefer not to. It would… complicate matters. That said, my time away has taught me the need to be practical. Had I been able to command an army the size that should have been my due, I would have waged a mighty war to retake the throne, as you seem to think would have been proper. Instead, I made the best of what I could muster, using them in the only way I could devise that would let me achieve my goals. As for their uniforms, I see nothing wrong with them. These are soldiers in the service of the King of Arendelle, after all.

"Practicality also means recognizing that intimidation and threats can only get you so far, unless you prove that you truly are capable of carrying them out. Having been stripped of my royal authority, I learned that lesson all too quickly. Now, I seek to educate the people of Arendelle in that same truth." He gestured dismissively at the rocks beneath the castle walls, not even bothering to look at the lifeless body that lay crumpled upon them. "Do not let yourselves believe for an instant that any of my threats are idle. You have all seen that I will not hesitate to take action."

"Do you think the people will follow a murderer?" asked Dokken in disbelief.

"Do you think they will not? They followed your Queen Elsa who, if the stories are to be believed, killed her own sister."

"The princess survived!"

"Not because of any action on the queen's part. The princess was frozen solid, was she not? From what I have been led to understand, she had stopped breathing. Her heart was no longer beating. Elsa's magic was effective and deadly. That her victim survived was wholly beyond her control."

"The queen never meant to harm anyone, but if you choose to murder innocent civilians..."

"Then it will be on your hands!" bellowed Ragnarr, his temper briefly flaring out of control. Though he made a visible effort to restrain it, he nevertheless glowered angrily down at the colonel. "I believe I have provided a sufficient demonstration of my ability to order such measures and see them carried out. Having done so once, I do not see the need for a repeat performance. However, if you insist on testing me, I could be persuaded to change my mind. The choice is entirely yours. Will you command your men to fire, or will you finally carry out the order I gave you at the start of this little altercation and tell them to stand down?

"Choose carefully. Choose quickly."

The two men stared fixedly at each other, engaging in a silent battle of wills. Soldiers on both sides adjusted the grips they held on their weapons, readying for action, waiting to see which way the scales would tip. All knew that their current precarious balance would not last much longer. One way or another, the stalemate was about to be broken.

"Soldiers of Arendelle," the colonel ground out through gritted teeth, "stand down."

There was a scant second of hesitation that seemed to last much longer. Then, Dokken's men grudgingly lowered their weapons. None of them failed to notice that the soldiers upon the wall did not respond in kind.

"A wise decision," Ragnarr rumbled. "Now, you will all return to the garrison and wait there until I decide what ought to be done with you. You will have no need for your weapons, of course. Leave them on the bridge. Soldiers loyal to the crown will collect them shortly."

"What about my men below?" Dokken asked, indicating with a tilt of his head the body of Sergeant Vik as well as the two who had helped him to scale the inner face of the siege wall. The raised height of the bridge would be too great for them to climb back up on their own.

"I suppose they have a choice," Ragnarr answered. "They can make their way across the rocks until they reach the shore. From there, they can join the rest of you at the garrison. I would not recommend they make any attempt to mount the wall again. My men hold it now, and they will be disinclined to allow any upon it who have not proven their loyalty."

Dokken waited, then said, "I fail to see the choice there."

A devilish smile played around Ragnarr's lips. "They can swim, I presume. No doubt the water would be quite bracing this time of year."

The colonel's face burned red with suppressed anger. Turning away from Ragnarr, he held the eyes of the two soldiers who still stood upon the pinnacle of rock. One of them looked down at Vik's limp form then back at his commanding officer, his question clear though it remained unspoken. Dokken nodded solemnly, then returned the men's quick salutes. He watched as they set down their weapons and began to clamber down to the uneven stones below. Working together, they slung the lifeless body across one man's shoulders, then began the long and difficult process of picking their way along the boulder-strewn base of the wall.

The sight only increased Dokken's impotent rage. Too furious for words, he turned to the rest of his troops. Drawing his sword from its scabbard, he lifted it high over his head so that all would see it. Then he brought it back down, bent low, and laid it carefully upon the packed snow at his feet.

Every muscle in his face was taut and tight when he straightened and raked his gaze over the assembled soldiers. He nodded curtly, then fought down the bile that rose in the back of his throat as he watched them all follow his lead. When the last man had finished disarming, they all looked back to him again, waiting to see what example he would offer next.

Clenching his jaw so tightly it ached, Dokken walked forward. He moved between the other olive uniforms, keeping his head held high while doing his best not to look anyone in the eye. He did not think he could stand to see his own shame at this ignominious defeat mirrored back at him. As he went, he heard the boots of those he passed turn and follow in his wake.

So it was that the soldiers of the capital marched back through the streets of the town to their barracks at the base of the mountains. To a man, they would all say afterward that it felt like nothing so much as a funeral procession.

• • •

"Your Majesty, if I might have a word."

As Ragnarr strode back to the palace, he allowed himself an instant of indulgence to savor the sound of that title in his ears once again. It had been absent for so long, he supposed it ought to feel somewhat out of place now that it had finally returned. Yet it did not. Indeed, it fit like a weary head laid to rest on a favorite pillow, perfectly cradled in a comfortable depression formed through long familiarity.

It was good to be home.

"Yes, Major Nagel?"

"Sir, I would not presume to question your orders, so please do not take this as such. I merely seek to understand the reasoning behind your decisions, the better to anticipate and serve you in the future."

Ragnarr cast a sidelong glance at his adjutant. It had been his experience that whenever someone opened a conversation by saying that they did not mean for it to be taken a certain way, there generally was no other possible way in which the rest of their words could be taken. Still, the success of his plans so far had left him in a rather good mood, and since the major had played a not-insignificant part in those plans, Ragnarr was perhaps feeling more generous toward the man than he might have at any other time.

"What is it you wish to understand?"

Nagel cleared his throat, though he attempted to play it off as nothing more than a small cough. Then, as casually as he could, he asked, "Why kill the soldier on the wall?"

"As I said," Ragnarr explained, "it was a matter of practicality. Arendelle has grown soft in my absence. The people became accustomed to an absentee king who lacked the resolve to govern with proper authority. There are many who have never known what it is to be truly ruled, and still more who have allowed themselves to forget. They needed a reminder."

"Yes, of course, but surely there were other ways to impart such a lesson."

"You never struck me as one who had a problem with violence in the service of a cause, Major."

"If I was, we would not have taken the castle, sir. But my men and I were able to perform that particular feat without inflicting any casualties. Many were wounded, but none grievously so."

"An accomplishment that I'm sure speaks to your impressive training and skill," Ragnarr replied, though his voice sounded anything but impressed. "Still, you were prepared to kill if necessary, were you not?"

"Certainly, sir. Otherwise, I would not have joined the military. However, it seems to me that, as king, you must always be keeping a far larger picture in mind than the simple one we soldiers can see."

"Your point, Major?"

"I have merely been thinking about something that the officer at the gates said. Your return to the throne was always going to be difficult for many people to accept. You yourself acknowledged this while planning our campaign. If you had expected to be at all welcomed, you would not have insisted we wear these uniforms from the moment we crossed the border into Arendelle. I assumed it was to help divert the suspicions of any we might encounter along the way."

"As I said at the gate, no other uniform would be appropriate for the men under my command."

"Be that as it may, are you not concerned that an execution so soon after you've reclaimed power will set the people even more firmly against you?"

Ragnarr came to halt just outside the doors to the palace. But though it seemed as if Major Nagel's words had caused the abrupt stop, the taller man did not turn to face him. Instead, he looked up at the palace, his eyes tracing the sharp angles and steep lines of the many gables that loomed above their heads.

The major waited, somewhat puzzled by the king's sudden and heretofore unexpressed interest in architecture. Yet as the silence between them grew longer, Nagel could not deny that a sense of anxiety was also growing steadily within him as well. Fortunately, he had learned long ago how to hide such feelings, even when a senior officer was dressing him down at the top of his lungs with their faces so close together that it felt like they were sharing sweat. That was why he'd learned to hide the sweat, too. If he hadn't, he was certain it would have been trickling down his back at that very moment, regardless of the cold. Had he perhaps asked one question too many? Had his words in some way managed to offend the proud man beside him? Was he about to pay dearly for his curiosity?

When Ragnarr spoke at last, he still did not look at Major Nagel. Indeed, though his head didn't move, it wasn't clear that he was really seeing the palace anymore either.

"You know how to wield a sword, do you not, Major?"

Nagel blinked. "Of course, sir. It was part of officer training."

"Broadsword?"

"I'm more skilled with the backsword, actually."

Ragnarr grunted. "Not surprising. Far more common. Only a single cutting edge, so they're cheaper and easier to make. Somewhat more forgiving, too. With a single-sided blade that always faces your enemy, it's that much harder for them to turn your own weapon against you.

"A broadsword, though, can deliver a fatal wound to an incautious wielder with surprising ease. Whenever you're engaged with your opponent, you must always be aware that an edge every bit as sharp is facing back at you as well. It broadens the scope of your potential attacks, but it requires you to adopt a very different mindset to use it effectively."

By this point, Nagel was feeling more than a little lost by the turn in the conversation. Truthfully, listening to Ragnarr's blithe discussion of swords was making him uncomfortably aware of the one that hung from the king's belt, so close to his extremely large hand. The skin across his abdomen tingled in a most disconcerting manner, as though it possessed an imagination all its own and was wondering what it would feel like to have a razor-sharp blade dragged mercilessly across it.

"I was once told that fear is a risky thing upon which to base one's rule," Ragnarr said in what seemed to be another unexpected change of subject. Oddly, though, his voice had now become uncharacteristically contemplative. "Should the people ever find something they fear more than you, then your power over them can disappear. I had ample time during my exile to think upon those words. Now I believe that, like so much else I endured during those years, they have in fact taught me a valuable lesson.

"Fear is a weapon, of that there is no doubt. But it is most definitely a double-edged sword. I see now that, in my younger days, I was dangerously careless with it. I swung it about like a cudgel with no proper respect for the sharpness of its blade. Then, I had the gall to act shocked when it bit deeply into my own flesh.

"But what if you placed that same weapon into skilled hands that knew how to control it, how to direct it, how to strike with deft precision and clever cunning? The result would be formidable, would it not? And twice as deadly."

"I… suppose so, sir." The pause in Nagel's delivery said quite a bit more than the words around it. Ragnarr realized this too, for he turned to look at the man.

"There was already fear in Arendelle before we arrived, Major. The entire place fairly reeks of it. It's this magic, you see. Oh, they think they love their queen. They think they've come to terms with her strange and unnatural abilities. I say anyone who truly believes that is deluded.

"They were willing to forgive and forget after summer returned and the entire kingdom was none the worse for wear. But it isn't summer anymore now, is it? Mark my words, this winter will have set people wondering. How can it not? Every day they step out of their front doors and see the ground still covered with snow, how can it fail to remind them of what their precious queen is capable of?

"And that was before this… this other woman entered the picture. When it was just one person with inexplicable powers, she was an oddity. A curiosity. Besides, by all accounts, this Elsa of theirs was mostly quiet, reserved, even shy. Suddenly, though, there are two of them, and the newcomer is none of those things. And if there are two, then how many more might there be?"

Ragnarr turned his back to the palace, gesturing with one sweep of his arm towards the castle gates and the town beyond. "I'll guarantee you that, even as we speak, the people are holed up in their houses, crowded together in the taverns, and they're all talking about the same thing. If one young woman who seemed so harmless could plunge the entire kingdom into an eternal winter, what might happen now? Only nobody knows the answer because nobody knows this Snow Queen, and that means she could conceivably be capable of just about anything. And the more often the tale gets told, and the more often the question gets asked, the deeper their dread will grow."

A peculiar and savage sort of triumph spread across Ragnarr's face as he waited for his words to sink in. Nagel found himself the focus of the king's intent study. He felt as though he was being tested, that he was expected to provide an answer to a question that had never precisely been asked. Unfortunately, he had no idea what that answer might be, and he had the feeling that a wrong answer would be even worse than no answer at all. So, while he returned the king's gaze, he also held his silence.

"Do you not see, Major?" Ragnarr asked, seemingly too enthralled with this idea of his to be overly concerned that his second-in-command had been unable to arrive at it on his own. "There is no problem with the people having something that they fear more than you. None at all… provided you know how to control and direct their fear."

His hand reached down. There was a clear ringing sound as tempered steel rose from its sheath to stand, straight and sure, in the air between them. Both of their gazes were inexorably drawn to and then held by it.

"I have gotten very good," Ragnarr said, his dark eyes reflecting the glint off the blade, "at wielding just such a sword."

* * *

 **A/N: Apologies for two chapters in a row that haven't featured the main characters you come here for. But even the movie had to show what Hans was up to now and then! We'll catch up with our heroes again in Chapter 18, I promise!**


	18. The Shackles of Expectations

"Why are you here?"

Elsa looked up from where she sat, turning her face toward the window and the person who had asked the question. The cold, hard light that filtered through the narrow opening left the speaker visible as a mostly featureless black shape. Only their outline was not lost in shadow. Indeed, it was limned with a glowing aura, which was all that separated the figure's shape from the dark wall behind.

Sighing, Elsa cast her eyes downward again. "I don't know why you need to ask. I suspect you know the answer better than I do."

The light from the window, which had been temporarily eclipsed, fell upon Elsa once again. She was aware, at the edge of her vision, of the figure crossing the room. She felt its weight settle onto the seat beside her own. Even so, she continued to stare down at her lap as she'd been doing for some time before the voice had interrupted her.

"All the more reason," that same voice now said, "for you to answer the question. Because I don't think I need to understand it half as much as you do."

Elsa laughed – a single, mirthless exhalation. Only the expression of ironic resignation on her face made it clear that the sound had not actually been a sob. "The symbolism isn't exactly subtle, is it?" Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the wall behind her. A metallic clinking accompanied the movement.

"Even obvious symbols can have many meanings."

"Fine. Then how about helplessness. Hopelessness. Subjection. Failure. An inevitable ending with no more choices and no way out. One where..." She lifted her arms from her lap. The clanking sound came again as she raised them before her face. "...where your hands are completely tied." She gazed despondently at the oblong manacles that encased her fists, not to mention half of her forearms.

There was a look of deep concern and considerable worry upon Elsa's face. That someone else happened to be wearing it had long since ceased to faze her.

"That isn't like you," Fare observed quietly. "You don't give up so easily."

That earned Fare a sharp but incredulous look. "I think you're confusing me with Anna. I gave up so often. Gave up on learning to control my magic. Gave up on being a proper big sister. Gave up on ruling the kingdom when I ran away on Coronation Day."

"And yet, you've learned control. You've reconnected with Anna. And you're the Queen of Arendelle, loved by her people. That doesn't exactly sound like giving up to me. I'd say perseverance might be a better word."

"But I'd stopped trying for all those things! That they happened anyway was – I don't know – almost an accident!"

"No, not an accident. All of those things happened for a reason. They all came to pass because you refused to surrender. Through it all, you never once gave up..."

"Yes, I did," Elsa interrupted, almost petulantly.

"You never gave up," Fare repeated, her voice rising in volume, "on protecting Anna!"

Elsa recoiled just a bit, her eyes growing wide. Slowly, she shook her head. "I… I was scared. If you want to say I clung to anything for all those years, that was it. I was always afraid. Of what I could do. Of what the world would think if it found out. And… and nothing's really changed. Right now, right this moment, I'm as terrified as I've ever been."

Fare's face softened. She extended a hand toward Elsa, though she stopped short of touching her. Instead, she merely placed it on the stone slab between them. It was a compromise: a gesture that, due to the complicated nature of their relationship, was as close to friendly as either of them felt comfortable with at that moment.

The embrace they had shared in an earlier dream had been born of spontaneous emotion and a sudden burst of mutual empathy. Here and now, the mood was decidedly different. Fare could feel it. What Elsa needed this time was somebody she could talk to, someone who could help her sort out everything that was going on inside her own head. Fortunately, her head happened to be Fare's home, and she knew it well. That was not to say that there weren't a few dangerous pitfalls lying around. They both would need to take care not to fall into any of them.

"And what is it you're afraid of?" she asked delicately.

Elsa closed her eyes. She tried to wrap her arms around her chest, as she so often did when fighting to keep her fears at bay, but the chains caught and kept her hands from pulling back that far. "I suppose that hasn't changed much either," she answered dispiritedly, letting the irons drop back into her lap. "I'm worried sick about what could happen to Anna – what might be happening to her right now, even"

"You've been worried about that since before you left Arendelle," Fare pointed out reasonably, "but this is the first time that it's driven you to retreat here." Her eyes glanced quickly around the dismal dungeon before returning to Elsa's face. "What's changed?"

Elsa turned her head away, as if she thought that doing so might actually conceal her emotions. If that was really her goal, then she was utterly betrayed by the shudder that ran through her body. It was violent enough to send a sympathetic tremor rattling along the chains. Apparently realizing that she had failed to hide anything, her shoulders slumped a little. When she finally spoke, it was only in the most tenuous of whispers.

"Queen Olavine."

"Ah," Fare replied.

Giving voice to the source of her fears must have tipped Elsa over some unseen threshold. Her quiet reticence evaporated and her attitude of shrinking hesitancy vanished. She turned back and looked Fare straight in the eye. Then the words began to tumble out of her.

"All this time, I've been worried about how I could possibly defeat the Snow Queen if it came down to a battle of magics. That seemed the most likely outcome, after all. Whenever I looked back at our one encounter, I worried that I might be hopelessly outmatched, but at least it was something that I understood.

"Even if I lost… Well, I could always give her what she wanted. I could buy Anna's freedom with my own. It wouldn't be the first time I'd isolated myself from the rest of the world just to keep Anna safe. Besides, Anna wouldn't have to be kept locked away in the castle this time. She'd have Kristoff and Sven and all of Arendelle to help her. She wouldn't have to be lonely or alone.

"The odds were against me either way, but at least my choices seemed clear. And while I knew that the Snow Queen had other magics besides ice and snow, I didn't let myself worry about them too much. Of course, I heard everything that Gerda and Kai said about how the Snow Queen could alter memories, and I didn't like the sound of it one bit. But they also said that, when Gerda found Kai, everything he'd forgotten came rushing back again. To hear them tell it, it sounded like their friendship and love for each other was enough to break the spell. So, while I hated the idea of someone twisting Anna's memories again, I figured that, no mater what else happened, I'd at least be able to get them back for her."

Elsa's voice cracked a little as she finished the sentence. Taking a deep breath, she tipped her head back until it rested on the wall behind her. Staring up at the ceiling, she swallowed thickly a few times before attempting to speak again.

"King Ulrik loves his queen," she said to the stones overhead. "He loves her so much that it was painful watching him try to cope with what was done to her. I'm sure he held her, cried for her, just like Gerda did for Kai all those years ago. And yet, her memories didn't come back. She doesn't remember him at all. They shared a lifetime together but, unless Grand Pabbie can help, it will all have been lost forever."

She turned to Fare again, and now all pretense of hiding her fear was gone. The corners of her mouth were pulled tight, white showed above the blue of her eyes, and her raised eyebrows were drawn together. "The Snow Queen toys with people's minds as if they don't even matter. Without the slightest warning, she just wipes away everything that makes them who they are. What if… what if she does that to Anna? What if she's already done it! Even if I somehow manage to defeat her, I could rescue Anna only to find that what's left isn't even Anna anymore! And if it can't be reversed..."

Elsa looked down at her shackled hands. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what I _can_ do. We just got each other back, and now the thought of losing Anna again... losing her like that… I think I could bear almost anything, even giving myself over to the Snow Queen, so long as I knew that my sister was safe. But if… if she…

"I don't think I could live with that. I couldn't bear it. I'd never be able to forgive myself. Anna has nearly died twice because of my magic. Both of those times will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. But every morning when I wake up and remember that she's alive and healthy and whole, I'm just about able to forgive myself my sins for another day.

"If something were to happen to her…" Her voice became hoarse and husky. "If I lost her..." She began to shake uncontrollably, sending the chains rattling yet again.

Fare gazed at Elsa, concern and indecision warring across her features. Then she slowly lifted her hand off the stone bench and, with the greatest of care, placed it gently atop the metal manacle. The gray stone surrounding them disappeared, and with it went the cold, gray light. In its place came a blackness so deep, it seemed to engulf not just their sight but every other sense as well.

It lasted only an instant, however. The next was flooded with both light and warmth. Elsa blinked, raising a hand automatically to shield her eyes. It took a moment longer before it dawned on her that there was no chain descending from her hand. Indeed, it was completely unfettered. She flexed her fingers, then lowered them as her eyes adjusted to the bright glare of the golden sun. Her first instinct was to ask where they were, but as she looked around, she realized that she already knew the answer.

The royal garden was in full bloom, the beds a carefully choreographed chorus of color. Bright green leaves fluttered in a steady breeze, dappling the ground beneath them with ever-shifting patterns of sun and shadow. Song birds perched in the branches, gossiping happily to one another. Off to one side, a mother goose kept careful watch over a clutch of puffballs, goslings making their first experimental foray out of the nest. Every now and then, she would honk reproachfully and dart forward, corralling a particularly curious fledgling that kept trying to wander further away from his siblings than his mother was ready to allow.

Elsa opened her mouth, preparing to ask why Fare had felt the need to bring them here. But the words that she next heard, though in her own voice, had not passed through her lips. Nor had they come from Fare. Elsa had not, even for a moment, suspected that they might have. Instead, her head swiveled around to fix on the tiny little figure that stood just beneath the tallest tree in the garden, an ancient oak whose uppermost reaches extended above the castle walls. The bright blue dress and pale blond plait were instantly recognizable.

"Anna!" the small girl called, craning her neck back to peer through the dense tangle of branches. "Anna, that's too high! Come back down before you fall and hurt yourself!"

"I'm not going to fall," came an equally familiar voice, though it had been years upon years since Elsa had last heard it speaking in such a high register. "I'm a great climber!"

The adult Elsa followed her younger self's gaze up into the treetop. There, bright flashes of coppery-orange were intermittently visible through the thick leaves. Her little sister – and how very little she really appeared at that moment – was shimmying out along a narrow branch, relying on the feel of the wood between her hands and knees to guide her progress. Her eyes were fixed a little further upward, already seeking out the next rung of this natural ladder that she was so engrossed in climbing.

"Anna, it isn't safe! You've never gone that high before."

"I know! Isn't it great? Just a bit further and I'll be able to see right out of the castle!"

"Look, if you want to watch the boats, we can do that from the tower," Elsa called back, worry coloring her young voice. "Or… or we could ask someone to take us down to the docks. I'm sure Gerda wouldn't mind."

"We do that all the time," Anna replied. She had paused on her branch now and was giving serious consideration to one that stuck out above her. "I want to see what they look like from here!"

"If Nanny knew you were up there..."

"But she doesn't. Besides, I've got you to yell at me instead, so..." Anna's voice broke off. Both Elsa's squinted, straining to make out through the foliage what their sister was doing. It looked like she was shifting her weight backward, sitting up straighter upon the bough. The next thing they knew, she had gathered her feet beneath her and was pushing herself upright, balancing precariously on the narrow shaft of wood.

"Anna." The word slid timorously out of little Elsa's throat. She did not shout for fear of startling her sister, but both hands came up to cover her mouth as she waited anxiously in hopes that Anna would come to her senses, turn, and begin the slow descent back down to the ground.

Unsurprisingly, that didn't happen. Instead, Anna lifted both arms over her head and began reaching out for the next branch. Everyone there seemed to be holding their breath. Everyone, that is, except Mother Nature. A sudden gust tossed the treetop, and the limb upon which Anna stood swayed dangerously. Elsa gasped as that shock of reddish hair dropped, but as the wind passed and the tree stilled, she realized that Anna had not fallen. She had simply lowered herself to a more stable position, once again straddling the narrow bole.

"Anna, please!" she cried out, though given that her heart was lodged in her throat, it lacked some of the volume of her previous cries. Perhaps that was why Anna didn't hear her. Or maybe she did but simply chose not to respond. Either way, Elsa watched as her sister once again curled her legs beneath her, then rose into a careful crouch.

Elsa wanted to close her eyes, hide them behind her hands, and not watch what was about to happen. At the same time, she wished that there weren't so many leaves in the way so she could see more clearly what was going on. She could not begin to understand how Anna could be so calm at such a great height, while she herself stood with both feet firmly on the ground and yet felt positively terrified.

She caught a glimpse of pink skin as Anna again stretched one arm upward. This was crazy. Her sister was crazy. She really should go get Nanny or Papa or some adult who would know what to do. But she couldn't just leave Anna alone. Who knew what could happen in the time it would take to find someone and bring them back here? So she stood, almost paralyzed with fear, her wide eyes staring upward.

There was a sudden movement up in the treetop. It took Elsa what would have been a heartbeat to realize what had happened, except that her heart had most definitely skipped that beat. Anna, just barely unable to reach the branch above her, had done exactly what any other child would have done… had they been standing on the ground. She'd jumped.

Elsa saw the bright red hair swinging back and forth as Anna hung from the new limb. Then, the sound of happy – or was it nervous – laughter drifted back down to earth. "Whoa! That was a close one!" Anna announced brightly. The breath that Elsa had been holding burst out of her chest, taking the form of a relieved laugh of her own. "Good thing the next branch is a lot closer! I just have to pull myself up, and then..."

An ominous creaking sound that lasted a scant second was the only warning. Then there was a sharp, splintering crack followed by a wordless cry. Suddenly, Anna was falling.

There was no time for Elsa to even give voice to her own panic. Instead, she found herself moving, acting on the purest of instincts. Her hands shot forward. Dazzling blue sparks flew through the air from her fingertips, striking the ground near the base of the tree. Immediately, snow began to appear. It grew rapidly, mounting higher and higher in a broad mound of thick powder that, in the space of a second, was almost brushing the bottommost branches of the mighty oak.

With a flump, Anna dropped smack into the middle of the magical drift and disappeared from sight.

"Anna!" Elsa shouted at last as she darted forward. Fear clawed at her chest in much the same way that her hands scrabbled at the loose snow. _Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay_. The words pounded through her head as she sought a glimpse of her sister's red hair or green clothing.

The next thing she knew, a shower of white flakes was flying into her face.

"Phooey. This isn't good snowball snow at all."

For a moment, Elsa could do nothing but stare open-mouthed at her sister. A small pout adorned Anna's face while she watched the dry powder run through her fingers. Then Elsa pushed her way though the snow that still separated them and grabbed Anna roughly by the shoulders.

"Don't ever do that again!" she admonished, her voice shaky. "You scared me half to death. And you nearly got yourself killed! Why didn't you listen to me? What were you thinking?" It was strange how the words that they'd heard so often from their old nanny now issued so easily from her own mouth.

Anna looked at her sister and, for the first time, something akin to fear crossed her face. "I'm… I'm sorry, Elsa. I didn't mean to. I… I just wanted to see how high I could go. I didn't mean to scare you. I only wanted..." She broke off, her eyes beginning to glisten.

"To have an adventure," Elsa finished for her. Anna nodded meekly, then lowered her head in shame. Somehow, Elsa knew that Anna's fear had only really surfaced once she had seen the dismay on her sister's face. "Oh, Anna." The words came out somewhere between a sigh and a groan, matching Elsa's mixed emotions of relief and exasperation.

Anna toed the snowy ground beneath her feet. Without looking up, she asked quietly, "Are you going to tell Mama and Papa? Or Nanny?"

"It would serve you right if I did," Elsa replied, a touch more sharply than she had intended. Her nerves were still on edge from the harrowing experience, and she wasn't quite ready to let Anna off the hook just yet. "I kept trying to warn you, but you just ignored me. What would you have done if I hadn't been here, hmm? What do you think would have happened if you'd hit the ground from that high up?"

Anna, still staring down at her feet, mumbled something that Elsa couldn't quite make out.

"What? What was that? I couldn't hear you." Wow, she really did sound like Nanny! Even though she recognized the similarity, Elsa couldn't help it. Was this what Papa had felt like that time he'd found them engaged in an imaginary sword fight with fireplace pokers? He'd sounded much the same then too. Had what they'd been doing then really been that dangerous?

Anna took a deep breath, glanced briefly up at her sister, then looked back at her shoes before she repeated, a little louder this time, "Nothing would have happened if you weren't here."

"What?" Elsa found herself asking again. She'd heard Anna clearly enough this time. She just couldn't believe what her ears claimed to have heard. "How can you…? If I hadn't… How can you possibly say that nothing would have happened?"

"Because," Anna replied shamefacedly, "if you hadn't been here, I never would have climbed so high. I only dared to do it because I knew you were there. I knew you would catch me." She looked up at Elsa, and their blue eyes met. "You always catch me."

Elsa found herself rendered completely speechless, suddenly struggling to process the notion that her little sister had that much faith in her. Surely that sort of trust should be reserved for their parents. Yet the look on Anna's face was unmistakable; she'd truly meant every word she had just said.

Elsa was not at all sure she was ready for that sort of responsibility. Protecting Anna from her own reckless daring was a full-time job. Sure, she'd done her best from the beginning to try to look after her sister, always attempting to talk her out of the craziest ideas that entered her head. Usually, she even managed to succeed. But this was something quite beyond that. She, Elsa, was only eight years old, after all. Well, she would be in a few months. How could she possibly…

"You're going to tell on me, aren't you?"

Anna's face was so downcast, so miserable, that it very nearly pushed past pathetic and went straight to comical. Or maybe it was just Elsa's emotions attempting to compensate now that her earlier fevered fright was at last wearing off. Whatever the reason, as she looked at her sister's freckled face, Elsa found a smile slowly spreading across her own.

"Well," she said, doing her best to keep the worst of her amusement out of her voice, "I think they're going to figure out that something happened. After all, your hair is full of twigs and bits of leaves. Your cheeks and arms are covered in scrapes where I'm guessing the bark cut you on your way down. And you've torn your dress. Again."

Anna looked down at herself, apparently noticing her various injuries for the first time. Elsa wouldn't have believed it possible, but her face fell even further. "I'm in so much trouble."

Elsa tipped her head to one side, then rubbed her chin as she'd seen grownups sometimes do when they were considering a particularly difficult problem. "I don't think we can hide the fact that you were climbing trees again. You'll probably get scolded for that. But this wouldn't be the first time you've crept back inside looking like you'd just crawled through a briar patch, so they might not think too much of it."

A gleam of hope broke across the younger princess's face. "You mean… you won't tell?"

"I might consider keeping it our little secret," Elsa replied, making quite a show of mulling over the matter. "On one condition, that is."

Practically bouncing up and down, Anna seemed to nod with her entire body. "Anything! Anything!"

Despite trying to appear stern, Elsa smiled. "The next time I tell you not to go so high, I expect you to actually listen."

"I always listen!"

"And then, I expect you to actually not go that high."

This additional stipulation was apparently serious enough that Anna needed to take a bit of time herself to consider it fully. Finally, although with some obvious reluctance, she nodded.

"Good. Then let's get you back inside. With any luck, maybe we can get you cleaned up a bit before Nanny sees you. If we can make it down to the kitchens without anybody spotting us, Gerda might even help. I'm sure she won't be too happy to see you looking like this either, but..."

"...she never gets as angry as Nanny," Anna agreed. "And if I act sorry enough, maybe she might even give us a couple chocolate 'clairs!"

"Anna!" Elsa shot her sister a disapproving look. "You should consider yourself lucky if you don't get sent to bed without supper."

"But I thought chocolate 'clairs were one of your favorites!"

"Well… Well… I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

The two girls' voices faded away as they stole through the backdoor of the palace. Elsa – the Elsa whose dream this actually was – continued to stare at the spot where they had disappeared for a long while, aware that Fare still stood beside her and watched her expectantly. Eventually, she turned away from the door to look instead at the mound of white snow beneath the tree. It was already shining wetly as it began to melt it the midday heat.

"What are you thinking?" the dark-haired woman asked cautiously. Elsa took her time answering, and when she did, there was an odd, melancholic lilt to her voice.

"I was wondering how Anna remembers this," she said. "Since Grand Pabbie replaced all her memories of my magic, how does she think she survived the fall? Does she remember dropping into a pile of leaves? Does she think I literally caught her in my arms? Or maybe she just doesn't remember it at all by now."

Fare frowned, concerned that Elsa was still dwelling on the possibilities of what the Snow Queen could have done to her sister. But before she could say anything, Elsa continued. "I mean, she was so young when it happened. We both were. I'd very nearly forgotten it myself. Hardly surprising, when you think about it. Whenever I picture Anna falling, I'm far more likely to remember the one time when I… when I didn't catch her."

Stepping forward, Fare broke into Elsa's thoughts with an abrupt urgency. "That's why I wanted to show you this. That's why I needed you to remember it. You've spent so long blaming yourself and your magic because it hurt Anna. It wasn't always that way, though. Your magic saved her, too!"

Elsa turned away from the oak tree to face Fare, and her surprise at how close they now were to each other was immediately clear. She took a step backward, but Fare closed the distance again, then reached down and grabbed Elsa's hands in her own so that she could not pull too far away.

"It isn't just an evil to be controlled," she said, determined to make herself understood. "Nor is it a mere toy to be used for decorating the palace or amusing the local children. It is nothing more and nothing less than what you choose to make of it. You've seen that for yourself. With it, you have already created things both of incredible beauty and darkest terror. It can hurt, yes, but it can also help. You know better than anyone how your magic can change based on what you're feeling at the time. Don't you see? That's the whole point! These powers don't define you or who you are. They don't control you. You are free to make of them what you choose.

"When the Snow Queen touched you within your mother's womb, she said that she had given you a gift, and she was right. Because once you give a gift, it no longer belongs to you. It belongs to the person who received it, and they are free to do with it as they like. Whether they fall in love with it and use it every single day or tuck it away in some forgotten corner and never think about it again, that's their right. The one who gave it no longer has any say in the matter."

With one hand, Fare reached up and lightly cupped Elsa's cheek. It was a testament to how far their relationship had come since they were both children that Elsa neither flinched nor attempted to draw away. She merely stared back, hanging on every word with a look of rapt fascination. Bolstered by this, Fare plunged onward.

"All your life, you've been measuring yourself by what others have wanted you to be. Your father saw you as his daughter, but more than that, he also saw you as the heir to his throne. You've felt that pressure upon you ever since you were old enough to understand that Queen wasn't just another word for Mother. That's why he always frightened you a little. He expected so much of you that it seemed almost inevitable you would disappoint him somehow.

"Your mother was a different matter. It was subtler with her, but when you were younger, she always looked to you to help keep an eye on Anna. After all, that was what she had done with her little sister when they were growing up. I wonder if it ever occurred to her how much more of a handful Anna was than Sunna had ever been, or that she herself had never had anywhere near the same responsibilities placed upon her shoulders as a child as you were expected to bear.

"Your magic didn't help matters either. From the very beginning, you were told to hide it, to not let anyone see. A princess shouldn't be able to do such things. If the people ever found out, they would be afraid. They wouldn't understand. Better to hide your powers and never let anyone know. That's what they told you, and so you did the best that you could. After all, you wanted them to be proud of you."

"Was that wrong?" Elsa asked.

"No," admitted Fare, lowering her hand. "Just unfortunate. You've studied your history. You know how many kings, queens, and other nobles earned a reputation for strange and eccentric behavior. Is it any wonder when so many of them grew up knowing that their entire lives had been planned out for them since before they were even born?

"All around the castle, the staff and servants called you Your Highness. Your tutors and your nanny taught you all the ways you were expected to behave, all the things you should and shouldn't do. You needed to be charming, graceful, calm, kind, sweet, poised, fair, and so many other things. Everything you were supposed to be was already laid out for you before you ever had the chance to truly figure out who you were when you weren't being what everybody wanted you to be!

"And all that time, even though you didn't know it, the Snow Queen was watching and waiting with ideas of her own as to what you needed to become. Now she wants to turn you into that person. Everyone seems to think they know who you are, except for you yourself!"

"And Anna," Elsa whispered. "She never wanted me to be anything but what I already was – her sister. And to her, my magic was just another part of that."

Fare shook her head. "No. There's a difference there, but it isn't Anna. When you fled from your coronation, it was because you were afraid of yourself, like your father wanted. You work so tirelessly as queen because you believe you owe it to your people. But when you're with your sister, that's the real you. All the rest is the Elsa you think you have to be. With Anna, that's the you that you _want_ to be.

"The difference is with you, Elsa."

Elsa face registered shock and disbelief. "Are you saying that… that I should give up all those other things? That I should abandon my duties and stop being queen?"

"Isn't that what you did? When Anna was in danger, her safety meant more to you than anything else. You left Arendelle to rescue her. You didn't make that choice because of what anyone else wanted from you. You did what you knew you had to do, what you couldn't possibly _not_ do. It might have been the first selfish thing you've done in a very long time. Maybe in your entire life."

"Selfish!" Elsa exclaimed. "I'm not doing this for myself! I'm doing it for Anna!"

"You're doing it because you can't bear the thought of your life without your sister in it. You want her to be safe and happy, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. You can't give your entire life over to others simply because you're told that you must, but you can choose to share a part of it with them because you decide it's what you want to do. And you've made the choice to be there for Anna.

"There are other choices you've avoided making, however. You're no longer hiding your magic, but that was mostly because of an accident rather than any decision you made. Even now, you still have not embraced it fully. Not entirely."

"What do you mean I haven't?"

Fare sighed. "You did briefly, up on the North Mountain. When you were alone, with nobody else around to worry about, you stopped being afraid. You gave yourself over to the magic. You and it became one. Again, you were the version of yourself that you wanted to be.

"But ever since you returned to Arendelle, you've been holding back again. You've let yourself do little things. You've gilded the tops of the castle towers, coated the courtyard in ice. Every time, though, you only let slip the smallest amount of power you can get away with. You cling to it like Anna clung to the reins when she was first learning to ride Adelen, afraid to surrender any control. You still don't trust it or yourself."

"I have good reason not to," protested Elsa. "I've seen what it can do."

"That's right, you have. It created the ice palace, and it was beautiful. I'm not just talking about the palace itself, either. I could feel the magic when you were building it, and it was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. It was glorious! There was so much joy and freedom behind it. You didn't hold anything back. You didn't even need to think. You reveled in it! Your heart and head together shaped it. You stopped trying to control it and stopped worrying that it might control you. And look what happened as a result!"

"But… But..." Elsa stammered. "But that was just it. I was alone and..."

"When you were young, when it was just you and Anna alone together, you used your magic with hardly a care. How many times, Elsa? And once, only once, did anything ever go wrong. Do you remember what you were feeling right before that happened? Do you remember what you were doing? You were already scared. You were trying so hard to direct your magic, to place those piles of snow in exactly the right spots at exactly the right heights to catch Anna. You stopped trusting yourself. You stopped trusting your powers.

"Believe me when I tell you this. If Anna had been with you that night on the North Mountain when you were so perfectly in tune with your abilities, when you felt like you were one with the wind and sky, nothing could possibly have hurt her. Even if she'd been having her clumsiest, most distracted day ever, she couldn't have helped but become part of the dance of your magic.

"In a way, it really is very much like learning to ride a wild horse. The harder you try to bend it to your will, the more it will fight you. But if you give up trying to have absolute control, if you can learn to tame it without breaking it, if you make it your friend instead of your enemy, then you won't need control. What you'll have instead is trust. You'll know that you can rely on it to get you where you want to go, even if that sometimes means it veers a little off course to avoid breaking a leg in the hidden rabbit hole that you didn't even notice was there."

When Elsa continued to look skeptical, Fare's patience began to fray. "Don't you see, Elsa?" she asked pointedly. "You're treating your magic the same way you've been treated! You're trying to force it to become what you think it should be instead of letting it be what it is. Like you, it's grudgingly accepted this because it's been given no other choice. But neither of you are going to be content, neither of you are going to be complete, until you stop letting others define you and finally decide to be who and what you really are."

"Even if that's true, even if I believe it all," Elsa said anxiously, "how will that help if the Snow Queen steals Anna's memories? I can't protect her if I'm not there, and so much could happen before we're able to catch up with them. What difference will any of this make if the Anna I know is already gone?"

Fare pursed her lips in thought before answering. "Do you remember all those bedtime stories that Anna used to love so much when you were little? Do you remember the tales that she always got most excited about when she used to sit and read to you through your door?"

"Those adventure stories?" Elsa asked, obviously thrown by the apparent change in topic. "The ones with pirates and knights and swordsmen and all that stuff?"

"That's right," Fare said with a nod. "All those grand, heroic fables. And the heroes of those stories always found themselves in one predicament after another, didn't they? Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Do you remember what else they all had in common?"

Elsa shook her head, mostly because she had no idea what point Fare was trying to get at.

"They didn't start worrying about the fire until they were out of the pan. They took it as a given that there would be another problem waiting for them, but they knew that they'd never get a chance to face it unless they dealt with the one in front of them at that moment. You want to save Anna? Then the first thing you have to worry about is getting her back. You can't do anything else for her until you've done that. Once she's free, then we'll find a way to deal with whatever comes next.

"And we will find a way. That's what heroes do."

"I'm no hero," Elsa said dejectedly.

"Ah, but isn't that what we've been talking about this entire time? When you stop giving others the power to decide who you are, then you can finally start to become the person that you want to be. And who knows? That person just might be a hero who simply hasn't realized it yet."

It was only then that Elsa realized that they were no longer standing in the middle of the gardens. When they had relocated, she couldn't rightly say, yet they were now somehow inside the palace. The odd thing, however, was that she was unable to pin down what room they were in. At first, she thought they were in the library. Then she turned to her right and saw the large mahogany desk that sat in her father's – no, in her study. But to their left was the white door with its distinctive pattern of rosemaling that had become so familiar to her during the thirteen years she'd hidden behind it. When she looked back over her shoulder, she saw a surprisingly small bed and, beyond that, the three-story doll house that she and Anna had played with so often when they had shared a room together.

The room seemed to change with every shift in perspective, which quickly became much too disorienting. So she focused on Fare again instead, the only thing beside herself that remained steady and constant. The familiar face, so like her own, looked back at her expectantly, clearly waiting for her to offer up some sort of response. Something about the situation struck Elsa then, and, despite herself, she began to chuckle silently.

Fare raised an eyebrow. "Did I miss the joke?"

"No." Elsa shook her head, her face still bright with amusement. "It just occurred to me that here we are, after all these many years together, after all that we've learned about one another, and yet you're still trying to do exactly the same thing that you've been attempting since the beginning. You're still trying to get me to embrace my magic."

One corner of Fare's mouth quirked upward in that exasperatingly cheeky smirk that always came to her so easily. "Old habits, I suppose. Except that this time, I think it might be a little bit different."

"Really? What makes you say that?"

Fare tilted her head appraisingly to one side, in much the same way the younger Elsa had considered her little sister. "I might be mistaken," she said, her tone making it plain she did not believe that she was, "but I think that tonight, you might actually have been ready to listen."

• • •

A cold wind blew fine flakes of snow into Kristoff's face and bit at his exposed cheeks. Even so, the bracing weather was not enough to keep a huge yawn from shaking his body as he sat on the driver's bench of the sled, fighting to stay awake so he could keep Sven company as they plunged northward through the darkness.

Kråkeheim lay several days behind them along the broad, snow-covered highway. They had departed on the same morning that King Ulrik and his small party had set out on their journey to visit the trolls, hoping against hope that Grand Pabbie would be able to help restore Queen Olavine's memories. Before they had left, they had been given a letter, signed and sealed by the king, declaring that they were to have safe and uninterrupted passage through the remainder of his kingdom. While that would be enough to prevent any additional costly detours due to unfortunate incidents of mistaken identity, Kristoff nevertheless felt the need to make up for the days they had lost. This time, he had been the one (and not Elsa) to insist that they continue on late into the night.

King Ulrik had also presented them with a second gift, which now flapped awkwardly upon Kristoff's lap as he tried to hold it flat with one hand. It was a map of the lands to the north, at least as far as they were known in Kråkeheim. The ice harvester gazed blearily down at it, trying his best to focus his tired brain well enough to determine where they were and to then locate a suitable spot to make camp. If he was fighting this hard to keep his eyes open, he knew that Sven must be flagging too. They would both need at least a few hours sleep before they could continue their pursuit.

When they crossed a small bridge over a narrow creek, he at last felt confident that his finger had pinpointed their position on the map. It also appeared to show that, not too much further ahead, they would actually pass a small hamlet with an equally small inn. Even better than a camp! This time of year, and with the weather being what it was, travelers upon even this busy road were likely to be few. They certainly had not encountered many so far. Hopefully, that would mean there would be a room available for Elsa and a stall in the stables for him and Sven. Might as well take advantage of civilization while they still could, before their journey led them beyond all such comforts.

Clumsily folding up the map, he tucked it inside his coat, then turned to the figure beside him. He'd had the thought that he ought to share this small plan with Elsa. Seeing her already fast asleep, though, made him change his mind. She would find out when they arrived, and there seemed little point in waking her just to announce that he'd settled on a place for them to sleep.

Weary as he was, and needing to keep his attention at least partially on the road ahead, Kristoff found it difficult to spare more than a quick glance toward his traveling companion. On top of that, there wasn't much in the way of a moon that night. He'd had to hang the lantern upon its hook as soon as darkness had fallen. It now swung back and forth with every little movement of the sled, casting a ruddy and ever-shifting light upon Elsa's face. All of this conspired to keep him from making out much about her expression, beyond noting that her eyes were quite steadily closed.

Even so, if he'd been pressed to describe what he thought he had seen there, one other detail seemed to stand out in his mind. It might have just been his imagination, which certainly could be playing tricks on him, tired as he was. Yet it had seemed to him that the corners of Elsa's mouth had been curled upward in the smallest of smiles.

Well, he could hardly begrudge her one night's worth of pleasant dreams. She certainly had enough to worry about while she was awake. He could only hope that, once he finally had the chance to flop down onto a pile of fresh straw and curl up next to Sven's warm body, he might be lucky enough to find a similar short-lived happiness during what little remained of the night.

The inn and the sleep it offered could not arrive quickly enough.


	19. The Queen and the Hunter

The brilliantly white sleigh had not stopped once on its northward journey.

The two great bears seemed to be possessed of supernatural stamina, but at length, even they grew tired. During those times, the Snow Queen took over. So far, she had not taken them back to the sky. Instead, whenever the bears' mighty legs began to falter, the snow beneath them would solidify into a platform of ice. Runners on its underside turned the slab into a small sled all its own, and another bit of artful magic seemed to cause the very snow they were passing over to somehow push them on their way. During these stretches, it almost felt as though the entire world had tipped forward slightly and that they were simply sliding downhill. In this way, the bears were given a chance to rest, even sleep, recovering their strength until they were ready to once again resume their duties.

It was during one such interlude that Olaf asked the obvious question.

"If you can make your sled go like this," he began, leaning over the side to watch the runners gliding effortlessly over the snow, "why do you even need Bernie and Barney?"

"Oh, I don't," replied the Snow Queen. "Nor do they need me. I may look after them and see to it that they never go hungry, but they are not tame beasts. They are free to come and go as they wish. In spring, when food is most plentiful, they often leave for months at a time to hunt. Yet when they have eaten their fill, they so far have always returned.

"As to why they keep coming back, the answer to that is also the answer to your question. Because they choose to."

She considered the bears thoughtfully, and her lips seemed to toy with the idea of a faint but fond smile. "Over time, I suppose we have all grown rather used to each other. It pleases me to have them for company, and since they continue to seek me out, I can only assume they share some of those feelings as well. So when I travel abroad, they come with me for the very simple reason that they want to come."

"So you're friends then!" Olaf exclaimed, inordinately happy to discover that this daunting woman could actually have something so mundane as a friendship.

"I'm not sure that is exactly the word I would choose to describe it," she temporized.

"Well, that's what it sounds like to me," Olaf insisted. "I mean, you miss them when they go off hunting, don't you?"

The Snow Queen pondered this. "I suppose it would be fair to say that I look forward to their eventual return."

"And you take care of them. And they watch out for you. And you like having them around and being around them. That sure sounds like friendship to me. Either that or fam-."

He cut himself off midway through the word, glancing apologetically toward Anna as he did so. Of course, even had she been paying attention, she would have had no idea what he was feeling guilty about. Since the Snow Queen's last kiss, she not only had forgotten all about her parents, but she didn't seem to remember that she'd ever had those memories to lose.

It left Olaf feeling rather dispirited, something he wasn't at all used to. He was warmhearted by nature (even though that was yet another bit of anatomy to add to the list of bits of anatomy that he didn't actually have). As such, he really wanted to do something to help cheer Anna up. His automatic impulse was to reach out and console her, to try and help her cope with such a painful and terrible loss. But how could he comfort someone who didn't even realize that they have a reason to grieve?

"Are you cold, Anna?"

The freckled face, whose chin had been resting upon the palm of her hand while her elbow had perched atop the sideboard, now turned toward him. The look upon it suggested that its owner had been thoroughly lost in far-distant thoughts, and that it was taking some effort for her to find her way back to the here and now.

"What?" she said, her slightly dazed voice only strengthening that impression.

"I asked if you were cold," Olaf repeated. "We've been traveling for a long time. It's the middle of winter, and the farther we go, the more the temperature drops. I mean, when you ran out into the courtyard, you didn't even have your cloak." He turned his head left and right, scanning the land to either side of the barely-discernible path they were following. "Too bad Mr. Oaken hasn't set up any shops this far north."

"I'm fine, Olaf."

"Are you sure? Because if you're cold, I can… Um… Er, let's see. Well, you know that I like warm hugs, right! Oh, but the ones I give tend to be a little frosty. Uh… Ooh, Kristoff told me once how he sometimes starts fires when he's out camping in the woods. Maybe if I rubbed my arms together really fast, I could… Hmm… No, probably not a good idea."

His whole face drooped in disappointment as he was forced to deal with the limitations of being made out of snow. "Are you hungry?" he finally said instead. Reaching up, he plucked the carrot off his face, gave it a briefly regretful look, then held it out to Anna. "You can have my nose, if you want."

This at least had the happy side effect of drawing out a smile from the princess. "Thank you, Olaf, but you go ahead and keep it. I'm okay, really!" As the snowman screwed his carrot back into place, Anna's face became thoughtful once again. She looked down at herself – at clothes that, though heavy enough to keep her warm inside the sometimes drafty palace, she had certainly not chosen with the idea of an extended open-air journey in mind.

"That is rather strange, isn't it?" she said, half to herself and half to Olaf. "I ought to be freezing by now, but I don't feel cold at all. I guess I did at first, but it didn't last for that long. Only until..."

Anna started, then glanced sidelong at the woman who sat on the other side of the bench. It had just occurred to her that all sense of the winter chill had vanished right around the time that the Snow Queen had removed those icy bonds that she'd put in place to restrain Anna during their initial escape from Arendelle. Had that been all that she'd done then, or had something else happened too, something so subtle that Anna hadn't even noticed?

"Until what?" Olaf was looking at Anna solicitously as, for the second time in the span of a few short minutes, his words pulled her out of her contemplations.

"Until I got used to it, I suppose."

She did not say what had been on her mind, mostly because she didn't want to worry her little friend if she could help it. Having him there with her was a great comfort. His cheerful personality helped keep her own spirits up. For some reason that she couldn't quite put her finger on, that had become more difficult over the last few days.

It was the oddest feeling, really. She had the sense that she ought to be… well, not exactly happy, considering that she'd been kidnapped and all, but perhaps a bit more resilient? After all, she'd been that way her entire life. Or… or had she? She frowned as she tried to sort out what exactly was troubling her so much.

It couldn't have been easy, growing up without parents. No, wait. It _hadn't_ been easy, especially after Elsa had nearly disappeared when Anna had been only five years old. She remembered how lonely she'd been then. Gerda had taken care of her, of course. So had Kai and the rest of the palace staff. As she looked back now, though, it seemed like there had been large gaps of time when she'd basically been left all alone, even when she'd been very young. There had been nobody to watch over her, supervise her, do all the little things with her that would ordinarily have been a parent's responsibility.

That was strange, wasn't it? She was a princess, after all. Granted, she hadn't been the heir to the throne; it had been Elsa who'd had to shoulder that responsibility. But you still would have thought that a young member of the royal family would have been chaperoned a little more closely, particularly with her parents gone and her sister locked in her room for unknown reasons. After one mysterious tragedy, surely everyone would have been keen to avoid another.

And poor Elsa! At least the castle staff had provided Anna with some company. Besides, she'd never known her parents, so it was harder for her to miss them in their absence. But without them, there'd been no one her sister had trusted enough to let into her room. All those years completely alone with no one to talk too and only Anna to keep her company through the door. It was a wonder Elsa hadn't lost her mind!

Except… somebody had tutored Elsa. Anna knew that for a fact. No matter how voracious a reader her sister might be, there was simply no way she could have learned everything she needed to know about ruling a kingdom from books alone. Yet after she had retreated into her room, Prof. Engelstad had been retained only to continue Anna's tuition. Hadn't he? That was what she'd been told, but was it possible that he'd actually given separate, secret, private lessons to Elsa?

Maybe he could have taught her through the door, the same way Anna had visited. But then why had she never seen him there, not even once in all those long years? Had Elsa actually allowed him to enter her room, despite how frightened she'd been of her powers then? She wouldn't have slipped out just to attend lessons in some other part of the castle, would she? And either way, it seemed odd that Elsa had never mentioned anything about it during the months after the Great Thaw when they'd finally been able to start getting to know each other properly again.

Her frown turned into a grimace as a slowly throbbing pain began to make itself felt inside her head. She resisted the urge to rub her forehead or massage her temples. Neither would have helped anyway, she knew, for the pain was nowhere near the surface. It was deep inside, right in the middle of her skull, and it seemed to pulse in time to the beating of her heart.

So she tried her best to ignore it, to reclaim her earlier train of thought. There had been something nagging at the edge of her awareness. Things just didn't add up. Somewhere, pieces were missing. Someone had kept secrets from her. Elsa? She'd hidden her powers for thirteen years, after all. Maybe she'd hidden other things, too. Maybe she still hadn't revealed them all. But why? What possible reason would she have to keep quiet about private lessons from Prof. Engelstad? It made no sense. Yet who else could have taught her?

This time, she couldn't help herself. An involuntary gasp escaped her as the pain in her head suddenly spiked. For a moment, the world around her seemed to reel dizzyingly, just like it used to when she was little and she'd been set back on her feet again after someone had spun her round and around and around, Except back then, she would have been laughing, giggling in enjoyment at the giddy sensation. And hers would not have been the only laughter, either. Try as she might, though, she could not put a face to the other voice.

"Anna?"

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, waiting for the pain and the lightheadedness to subside. Slowly, both did. Just as slowly, fearful that the bizarre symptoms might return again without warning, she pried her eyelids apart.

Olaf stood on the seat beside her, looking up into her face with an expression of deepest worry upon his own. "What's wrong?" he asked. "You don't look so good."

What could she tell him? She couldn't understand any of it herself, and just toying with the idea of trying to put it all into words threatened to bring the pulsing pain back again. Yet there seemed little point in continuing to insist that all was well. She settled instead for a bit of the truth.

"I don't feel so good," she admitted. Shifting in her seat, she reached around to rub at the small of her back with one hand. "I've been sitting in the same place for too long. I need a chance to stretch out for a bit."

"Ooh!" Olaf began to nod enthusiastically, apparently seeing at last a way in which he might be helpful. "Ooh, wait right here. I'll be right back." So saying, he spun around on the spot and addressed the Snow Queen.

"Your High-majesty-ness," he began, "I know you're in a hurry and all, but do you think maybe we could stop, just for a little bit? Only, you see, Anna here..."

"Yes, I heard," the Snow Queen replied. Her voice betrayed little emotion, neither sympathy nor irritation. She merely examined her passenger with a clinical eye. Then she glanced up at the sun, though it was barely visible behind a uniformly gray ceiling of clouds. "I suppose we could spare a brief stop. Only for a short while, though. Then we must get back underway. Understood?"

"Absolutely!" Olaf turned back to Anna. "See, that wasn't so hard!"

But Anna wasn't looking at him. Instead, her eyes were fixed upon the Snow Queen, who was once again minding the road, seeking a satisfactory place to park the sled. Her captor seemed to be a mass of contradictions. She looked so young but seemed so old. She spoke about loneliness as if she'd known it all too well, yet she also harbored a disdain for other people so deep that it seemed clear she could barely stand their company. One moment, she would come across as cold, hard, and uncaring. The next, she would agree to halt their flight for something as simple as her captive's discomfort. To Anna, she was every bit as confusing as Elsa's mysterious education.

She did not let that thought linger overly long in her mind, however. A single dull throb warned her away from any further pursuit of that line of questioning, at least for the moment.

Soon, they turned aside from their steady course, instead taking advantage of a narrow path that split off to one side and led into a small evergreen wood. It was a tight fit. Needle-covered branches kept snatching at Anna's head as they steered between the trees, so that she ended up leaning closer to the Snow Queen than she otherwise would have liked just to keep from being constantly slapped in the face. Fortunately, they did not have to go too far into the small forest. Once the main road had been lost to sight behind the boles and branches, the sleigh drifted smoothly to a halt.

The Snow Queen climbed down first, looking as perfectly composed as if she'd just stepped through her own front door. With an almost imperceptible flick of her finger, the ice beneath the bears shattered with a sharp crack, then crumbled into a million tiny pieces. Stepping around to their side, she bent down and, with a serious of quick, deft movements, began to unfasten their harnesses. Once both animals had been freed, she knelt down between their heads and caressed the white fur of their necks. As she did so, she spoke to them in a voice so soft that Anna could not hear a word of what she said. Then, with one last affectionate scratch under each bear's jaw, she stood and watched them both lope off between the trees.

"I thought you said we wouldn't be stopping long." Anna remained seated in the sled, warily eying the spot where the bears had vanished from sight. Despite the fact that they seemed docile enough under the Snow Queen's influence, she still couldn't quite shake the image of them savagely attacking Polla, Elsa's snowbear creation.

"Not too long, no. Oh, they shouldn't need to wander off very far. I have no doubt they'll be back before we are ready to set off again."

Despite these words, Anna did not move. She simply sat, arms wrapped tightly around herself even though she still couldn't seem to feel the cold. Olaf, however, had quickly hopped down and was already happily exploring.

"Anna, come on," he called to her. "You said you needed to stretch, right? Well, now's your chance! What are you waiting for?"

Realizing that she had no idea how long it might be before she'd be given such an opportunity again, Anna finally began to unfold her legs and get to her feet. Only then did she discover that the excuse she'd made to divert Olaf had contained more truth than she had realized. Her knees and thighs protested as cramped muscles flexed fully for the first time in… well, she'd completely lost track of just how long they'd been traveling. Her dismount from the sleigh was nowhere near as smooth as the Snow Queen's had been, being more of an awkward hobble than a demonstration of stately elegance and poise. Seeking to work the worst of the knots out of her body, she stretched once, then began to walk somewhat stiffly in a circle around the sledge.

As she turned the corner and walked through the space where the bears had stood minutes earlier, she glanced at the outer face of the dash panel. Then she did a double take, bent down, and peered more closely. Engraved in the otherwise smooth surface were a myriad of hard-edged geometric shapes. No curves or wandering lines, but a panoply of parallelograms and rhombuses; triangles, pentagons, and hexagons; all cunningly arranged to form a spray of intricate snowflakes across the front of the sled. Some were large, others quite tiny. But most impressively of all, try as hard as she might, Anna could not find any two that shared the same outline. There might have been close to a hundred all told, yet every single one was unique. The skill and craftsmanship, not to mention the sheer time, that had been put into the mosaic was amazing.

Her curiosity now piqued, Anna straightened and continued her explorations, eager to examine the sleigh's other ornamental carvings. She'd only managed a brief glimpse of them back in the castle courtyard, and she had been too far away then (or too busy trying to fight free of the snow golem) to have been able to get a good look. The ones that adorned the front somewhat reminded her of the rosemaling that decorated many carts and sleds in Arendelle, and as she turned the corner, she expected more of the same. She was shocked to discover that the artwork stretching along this side panel was nothing even half so commonplace as that.

What appeared to be either icicles or stalactites descended from the top of the panel. Tongues of flame licked up from the bottom. In between were a great many figures, both male and female, but a few in the middle had been given greater depth, literally standing out from all the rest. And while those around them were shown in what seemed to be idle repose, the four most prominent men appeared to be engaged in a struggle to the death.

The central figure – who looked to be the biggest, the tallest, and the oldest – was beset upon by the other three. He was running, straining to shake off the attackers that clung to his arms, his neck, or indeed to any part of him they could reach. His mouth was open wide in what Anna first took to be a roar of fury, but as she leaned closer, that impression changed. The difference lay in his eyes. They were filled with fatigue and resignation, as if he had been running for so long that all his reserves had finally been spent.

He was not bellowing in anger, she realized. He was panting with exhaustion. Soon, he would crumple beneath the combined weight of the other three men. His fall had become an inevitable matter of time. The whole scene might even have been sad except that the assailants did not look wrathful or even particularly happy at their victory. Their expressions seemed curiously detached, as though there was no more malice in their actions than what a gardener experienced while pulling weeds from a carefully tended plot.

What a curious scene! Not that long ago, Anna would never have imagined that anyone would choose to have such odd artwork decorating the side of their vehicle. Now, she'd pretty much come to expect strangeness wherever the Snow Queen was concerned. The sheer variety of it did continue to surprise her, though.

Straightening again, she made her way around to the back of the sled, and the next image she found there puzzled her. It did not seem to belong with either of the two she had seen so far. Nor could she understand why a woman with such an affinity for snow would choose to emblazon this image on her carriage.

It was a tree, and an immense one at that judging by the sheer breadth of its elaborate canopy. The trunk branched repeatedly, its limbs twisting and turning to such a degree that the spaces between them became almost like a maze. Moreover, unlike most artistic impressions of trees she had ever seen, this one depicted the roots as well, and they were even more contorted than their above-ground kin. Indeed, they had become so gnarled, they'd wrapped themselves into knots, appearing almost serpentine in nature.

This was, Anna thought, in every way the opposite of the relief she had seen on the front panel. There was not a straight line to be found anywhere in the tree. Everything was curves, loops, and arcs. The leaves upon the ends of the branches marked a celebration of the warm months beloved by growing things, rather than reveling in the cold and crystalline beauty of a winter season during which so many plants and animals simply chose to sleep.

She actually found it difficult to tear her eyes away from the tree. Its constantly coiling shapes led her down one narrow pathway after another, none of which ever seemed to reach an end that wasn't simply the beginning of another weaving trail. It was truly mesmerizing to behold, and only with a great deal of effort did she finally manage to convince her feet to carry her to the fourth and final corner of the sled. Even then, her attention continued to stray through the seductive tangles until the very last, looking away only when they finally disappeared from view.

While the other panels had all been unique to the point of near randomness, the last one at least seemed of a kind with its partner on the opposite side. It also depicted a sweeping scene in similarly exquisite detail. A tall figure on horseback drove forward through a pitched and chaotic battle, spear held high and poised to strike at a ravening wolf whose jaws were opened impossibly wide. Beside the horse, another warrior stood. On his left arm was a triangular shield, not dissimilar to the one that Joan of Arc carried in Anna's favorite painting back in the royal portrait gallery. This shield, however, was thrust deep into the open mouth of an enormous rearing serpent, while the man's other hand was drawn back over his shoulder, preparing to bring his mighty war hammer down to deliver a brutal blow.

Once again, dozens upon dozens of other figures appeared behind those few that had been given prominence. This time, however, those in the background were certainly not idle. All were engaged in violent struggles of their own. Men grappled with other men. Horses reared, aiming to drive their hooves down upon strange and grotesque creatures whose jaws were filled with deadly, needle-sharp teeth. As she looked more closely, Anna thought she could even make out a few among the fighters who appeared to be neither man nor beast. There were women there as well, right down in the thick of the melee with all the rest!

The entire scene spoke of desperation. Though she couldn't understand quite how, it gave Anna the impression that the battle it portrayed was a last stand. Heroism and glory had been left by the wayside on the road to this war. As with the fall of the beleaguered man in the earlier scene, there seemed to be an inevitability about it. A leaden weariness lay heavily upon the soldiers as they recognized that, though they had no choice but to fight, it would not be victory that awaited them at the end of the day.

Had she been hoping that the sled's decorations might shed some light upon the mysteries of its owner, Anna came away disappointed. If anything, she was even more confused now than she had been before. Gently falling snow and a tree in bloom. Scenes of apparently casual violence and of brutal war. How did they all fit together? What sort of woman would surround herself with such discordant imagery?

A woman of contradictions, of course.

Anna looked up and found the Snow Queen standing near the edge of the woodland trail, staring off through the trees in roughly the direction that the bears had gone. She was still as a statue, barely moving a muscle, her face serious and intent. Only her eyes gave lie to the impression that she had been carved out of alabaster. They roved back and forth, every now and then darting rapidly in her head as if following some distant movement.

Stillness lay upon them like the snow on the pine branches above their heads. Even Olaf, who had been humming absently to himself this whole time, had fallen silent. When added to the already unsettled feeling the carvings had given Anna, the effect was almost unearthly. The princess felt her skin beginning to crawl. She'd never been comfortable when things got too quiet, and right then, it seemed as if all the quiet in the world had congregated in this one secluded forest. Feeling like her ears were about to burst from the lack of sound, she opened her mouth to break the silence herself.

What came out was a gasp that even she barely heard. Another sound shivered on the winter air instead: the distinctive twang of a plucked string. The Snow Queen had moved with reflexes so fast, she had been little more than a blur to Anna. Now she stood with one arm outstretched to the side, and in that hand was a curved bow. Even in the gray light that filtered through the trees, its facets glinted with uncanny brilliance. Then, as the arm that supported it slowly dropped, the ice began to dissolve into the finest dust. Starting at the tips and working inward, the infinitesimal pieces that had once been a bow were simply carried away on the wind.

There came the sound of something large plowing through the underbrush, and it wasn't long before Anna saw the source of the noise. The two polar bears had returned, and together, they were dragging something heavy behind them.

"Well done," said the Snow Queen. "From one hunter to another, well done indeed." As the bears dragged the carcass out from under the trees, she inspected it appreciatively. "A hart, and a big one at that. You have earned yourselves a feast tonight." Then she cocked her head and appeared to consider the deer again. "Though, since I did play some small part in the endeavor, I wonder if perhaps you might be persuaded to share your spoils."

"Share?" Anna asked, and her voice came out strangely high-pitched, even to her own ears. Clearing her throat, she tried again. "Share with whom?"

The Snow Queen had crossed to the sled and was now rummaging around in one of the containers stowed in the back. "With you, of course." Then she stood, and Anna saw in her hands what looked for all the world like a small tinderbox. "You might want to see about collecting a bit of firewood, unless you would prefer to eat your dinner raw."

"Oh, I can help!" Olaf's voice sang out immediately. "I love a good fire! So warm and toasty. I think I saw some fallen branches over here that would be perfect! Yeah, here's one. And there's another. This one looks good too. Ooh, that one's really nice."

"Dinner?" Anna still felt like she must have slept through something important without noticing, because this turn of events wasn't making any sense to her. So far on their journey, she'd gotten by on a diet of dried fruits and nuts, which must have made up the main content of the containers her captor had brought with her. For her part, the Snow Queen had eaten little, so Anna assumed the food had been meant to sustain Elsa on the return journey.

"You eat meat, do you not?" It took only a wave of a hand for the Snow Queen to clear all the snow from the ground in a good sized circle. Olaf trundled over and dropped an armful of twigs right into the middle. With a happy little skip, he spun around and hurried back the way he'd come to collect another load.

"I do," Anna replied. "I just… I didn't expect… Here, let me help with that."

She had started forward, reaching out toward the small metal box in the Snow Queen's hands, but the witheringly reproachful look she received stopped her in her tracks. "You think I do not know how to start a fire?"

"I… Well, you're not exactly… I mean, ice or snow, sure. Cold winds and all that. I don't know, maybe freezing rain too? And I'm sure you could whip up some impressive hail easily enough. You've definitely got the whole winter thing down, is what I'm trying to say. It's just that, you know, considering pretty much everything about you, I suppose I never really imagined you ever having much need to… That is, I just didn't figure you would ever have had any reason to learn to..."

The piercing blue eyes continued to hold Anna at bay. Then, without so much as looking down, she struck flint against steel. Sparks flew, arced downward, and dropped onto the tinder. Seconds later, they had caught in earnest. By the time Olaf returned with more wood, a small but eager fire was already burning steadily.

• • •

Anna had never considered herself a particularly squeamish person, but she nevertheless felt no great need to pay close attention to the dressing of the deer. She was doubly glad of this decision once several long strips of venison had been set to roast by the fire. The smell of the cooking meat soon had her mouth watering and her stomach gurgling in anticipation. She also choose to studiously ignore the two bears as they made their own meal out of the rest of the carcass. Her appetite newly awoken, she really didn't want to risk spoiling it now.

The first bite was so heavenly, it would probably have made her weak in the knees had she not been sitting down. The rest of the strip disappeared with remarkable speed, and it was only as she reached for another that she glanced over at the Snow Queen. Once again, she was not eating. Nor was she watching the flames, as those who gather around a fire so often do. Instead, her head was tipped back and she was gazing up at the sky through a gap in the trees.

The wind had picked up, and though the pines largely sheltered them from it, they could still see its effects. The gray clouds that had domed them in for days had finally broken up, leaving only ragged tatters that scudded quickly by overhead. Winter's early sunsets meant that the stars had already begun to come out, sprinkled across a sky of darkening indigo. For some reason, the sight and the situation stirred up a distant recollection from the depths of Anna's memories: lying on her back in the gardens while, beside her, Elsa excitedly pointed out the stars that made up the handful of constellations she'd only just learned about.

Eventually, Anna had learned them too, and now she tried to see if she could spot any of the ones she remembered in the small window above them. Somewhat to her surprise, she actually did. Not all of it was visible, but she felt pretty sure that she could at least make out the three bright points of light that made up the belt of Orion. And that triggered another memory, though this one was considerably more recent. She looked down again at the woman with whom she happened to be sharing this small patch of sky.

"You're a hunter?"

"Hmm?" It was one of the very few times that Anna could recall the Snow Queen failing to fully absorb every syllable uttered in her presence. How far toward those stars must her thoughts have strayed?

"Earlier, when you were talking to the bears, you said, 'From one hunter to another.' I never would have guessed that you would enjoy hunting, especially not after hearing you talk about all the animals you look after."

"I was a hunter – and a very good one – a long, long time ago. Somewhere down the years, though, I'm afraid it lost most of its appeal for me."

"But you shot the deer, didn't you? You were so quick, I wasn't even sure that I saw what I thought I saw, but then the bears brought it back to you and..."

"They were the hunters today, not I. They managed to sneak up on it, which is no mean feat, I can assure you. They attacked and injured it badly. Still, they are more used to hunting seals on the open ice than deer in a crowded forest. Even mortally wounded, it might well have evaded them, only to then suffer a long and painful death. What I did was merely a mercy.

"Rest assured, I would not have sent them to kill for your benefit alone. They hunted for themselves, and they brought back more than enough to sate them both. What they leave behind will feed many others in these woods. I simply saw no reason why it could not feed you as well."

"Oh." Anna took another bite of the venison, letting her gaze drift away from the Snow Queen and trying to decide whether what she had just been told had actually left her knowing anything more about the woman than before she'd broached the subject.

Her eyes fell on Olaf, who was sitting at the edge of the pool of firelight, hands resting where his toes ought be. Unsurprisingly, he was staring with rapt fascination at the dancing flames, nearly oblivious to everything else around him. He kept leaning forward a little, wanting to get closer to the heat that he loved so much. Eventually, a sheen of what could almost be sweat would break out on his face. Then he would reluctantly draw back. He didn't carry his personal flurry around with him during these cold months, and with no Elsa nearby, he was forced to play things safer than he otherwise might have liked. Though he seemed less wary of the Snow Queen than Anna felt was wise, she guessed that even he didn't trust her to help him hold it together if he got careless.

Even so, the blissful expression on his face sparked a twinge of jealousy in Anna's heart. She wished that she could be half as confident as he was that their current circumstances would somehow find their way to a happy end. As their long flight northward dragged ever onward, the doubts kept growing ever stronger in her mind.

High above, the stars twinkled, totally unaware of this or any other drama that played out beneath them. Anna again sought out the hunter's belt, but instead of imagining it wrapped around a bowman's waist, she pictured Kristoff wielding his trusty pickaxe. He would be coming for her. As much as she was certain of anything, she was certain of that. And Elsa too, of course. She missed them both so terribly. At that moment, she would have given just about anything to see them again.

"You are finished."

The Snow Queen's voice drew Anna back to earth, and she saw the woman's gaze fixed upon the makeshift skewer in her hand. Sure enough, it was empty. She'd eaten the rest of the meat without even noticing, and though her stomach was the more contented for it, her tongue was rather disappointed that she hadn't been paying more attention to the flavor.

"Come then. It is time to leave. We have already dallied longer than I had intended."

For a fleeting moment, Anna considered rebelling. Maybe she'd just see what would happen if she continued to sit where she was and ignored all orders she was given. This lasted only until the Snow Queen called into darkness and the two bears responded to the summons. The dark red stains around their maws proved enough incentive to drive Anna to her feet.

The bears were buckled back into their harnesses. The fire was doused beneath a mound of snow. Resignedly, Anna began to climb back onto the bench, her body already dreading who-knew-how-many-more days folded up with far too little room to move.

"You may ride in the back, if you wish."

Anna stopped with one foot on the floor of the sled and one still on the snowy ground. "What?" she asked in surprise.

"If you are uncomfortable up front, then you may ride in the back instead. You will at least have a little more room to move there."

"Hey, yeah!" exclaimed Olaf, poking his head up over the seat back. It was literally just his head, supported by his two spindly arms. "It's not bad back here at all, and it'll be even easier for us to keep each other company!"

"You're sure?" Anna asked uncertainly.

"Of course." Both Olaf and the Snow Queen answered her question at the same time.

"I would not have offered otherwise," the blond woman added, "but if you do not wish to..."

"No, no. I'll give it a try," Anna said quickly. "And, um… thank you."

The Snow Queen nodded, and Anna pulled herself up into the cargo bed. It wasn't spacious. She wouldn't be able to lie down flat in it, but she could at least stretch her legs out. With a little help from Olaf, she was even able to rearrange the few containers to make things a bit more comfortable. Then, without another word, they were off. Soon, they had left the little wood behind and were striking out again on the road they'd been following earlier.

Leaning her head against the back of the driver's bench, Anna lifted her eyes again to the starry sky. Now, she could see all of Orion clearly. She also knew that, if she turned and craned her neck toward the northern horizon, she would be able to spot the five stars that made up Cassiopeia, the queen of myth that now hung forever in the heavens.

 _The queen and the hunter,_ she thought. _Both watching over me. Neither able to help._

Then at the reins, both a queen and a hunter. Part regal nobility, part violence and danger, with no knowing which one would turn its attentions to her next.

And somewhere far behind them, Elsa and Kristoff. She was sure they were racing to catch up, but there was no way their pursuit could possibly be as tireless as her flight. _I just hope they_ _don't get lost,_ she thought desperately. _I hope they don't lose the trail, that they_ _know where to look for me._

 _And I really hope they find me soon._


	20. Cold Comfort

Perhaps they didn't truly need the lantern's amber light to make their way along the bleak stone corridor, but all three women felt better for having it. So, too, did those they'd come to visit. Every few meters, the women would stop. Then the one carrying the lamp would take a shallow bowl from atop the stack carried by the second woman and ladle into it thick, steaming stew from the kettle carried by the third. She would then slide the full bowl through a narrow opening in one of the thick wooden doors that lined the passage. A few scant words of comfort were also shared through the small barred windows. These little kindnesses that they were able to give still seemed a pathetically miniscule pittance.

When they at last came to one particular door, the women exchanged silent looks of sympathy and understanding. The lantern was passed to the one who carried the dishes, so that it hung from her fingers and dangled down beneath her burden. The kettle bearer paused to lay a reassuring hand upon a sagging shoulder, for which she received a wan but grateful smile in return. Then she and the other woman continued down the passage, leaving Gerda standing alone. The only light she had to see by was a sliver's sliver that had managed to find its way to her after passing through the windows in both the far cell wall and the locked door.

"How are you, Kai?" she asked. The groan she received in response made her heartbeat falter for a second, though the words that followed it eased her mind a little.

"Too old to be sleeping on a slab of stone," he replied. From the sound of his voice, she knew that he was attempting to smile, to make it clear to her that his imprisonment had not yet broken his spirit. And while she appreciated the gesture, it also frustrated her. She ought to be the one reassuring him! After all, he was in far worse straits than she. Not that any in Arendelle were particularly well off at the moment.

"I know," she said as she passed his dinner bowl through the opening in the door. "That's why I managed to sneak a little something out of the linen closet for you. It isn't much. I couldn't bring one of the really heavy ones because it would never fit through the door, but..." Looking both ways to make sure that nobody was watching, Gerda blew out her breath, then quickly shoved a hand down the front of her skirt.

"One thing about getting older," she grumbled while wrestling with something tucked beneath her bodice, "is that nobody pays much attention to a bit of extra padding behind your belt." With a final grunt, she tugged loose a wad of folded fabric. "At least it'll give you something more to sit on, and it'll help keep you warm at night. Heaven knows those moth-eaten rags that pass for blankets down here aren't much good for either."

Doubling it over yet again, she began trying to push the meager coverlet through the food slot, but she encountered unexpected resistance almost at once. Thinking it was simply too thick to pass through easily, she shoved again, harder this time.

"No," Kai's sharp voice came back to her, though it softened when he continued. "Thank you, Gerda. I appreciate it, truly. But please, give it to someone who really needs it. I've heard poor Moris a few cells down, and he's developed a nasty cough that has me worried. You should let him have it. He doesn't have the natural insulation that I do, but he does have a pregnant wife waiting to get her husband back."

Gerda hesitated for a moment. "You know, you are allowed to worry about yourself once in a while," she chided. But when he didn't respond, she sighed and nodded. "Fine. If you're sure that's what you want, then that's what I'll do. If there's anything that you do need, though, I expect you to let me know. I'll try to find someway to get it to you, whatever it might be."

"What I really want," grumbled Kai, "is news. What's going on out there? What is Ragnarr doing? Does he honestly think he's going to be able to make this work? How are the people reacting? Surely, they aren't going to just accept his return as king."

"The people are frightened," Gerda said. "Terrified, actually. I think there are some who would stand up to this whole mess if only they had someone to lead them, but most everyone who might have done that was inside the castle when it was taken. Now they're down here in the dungeons, which isn't exactly the best place from which to lead anything… especially since Ragnarr has made it perfectly clear that you are all to be charged with treason."

"Treason," scoffed Kai. "Clearly, he and I have a very different definition of that word."

"Well, his seems to include you and others conspiring with the Snow Queen."

"What?"

"That's the story his men have been feeding to the townsfolk. They're saying that people in power have known about her for years but haven't said a word, not even after Elsa revealed her magic. That some knew she'd given Elsa her powers, but they chose to keep it a secret. That the truth was hidden even from the queen herself until it was too late. That it's all part of a grand conspiracy to undermine the monarchy."

"What a load of rubbish!"

"Is it?" Gerda asked quietly. "The conspiracy part, certainly, but much of the rest is true enough. You and I have both known for a while. So did King Agdar and Queen Idun. Didn't we do everything we could to hide the truth? We admitted as much when we spoke to the royal advisors after Anna was taken. And not surprisingly, most of them are down here now, too."

"If he thinks imprisoning its leaders is going to cow Arendelle, then Ragnarr understands this kingdom even less than I thought he did. Especially so soon after Prince Hans tried the exact same thing."

"Yes, Kai, but that's just it. It nearly worked for Hans, didn't it? Who spoke up when he ordered that Elsa be locked away? Who tried to stop him when he declared that she was to be executed for treason? Who questioned anything he said?"

"We did. You and I, remember? We never believed a word of it, and once we found out what he'd done, we tried to get down here and get the real story from Elsa herself."

"We knew the truth!" Gerda pointed out. "Nobody else did. The castle had been closed for ages. Even those who worked here were never told why. And for most of that time, they never saw Elsa. Even when she finally started leaving her room to learn at her father's elbow, she still didn't trust herself. She rarely ventured out for more than an hour or two at a time, and she spent most of that just hiding in his study. Really, when it came right down to it, you were the only one who got to see all that much more of her."

"Yes, well, even that took months before her father convinced her to let me join them."

"The point, Kai, is that people had no idea what was going on with her all that time. It was all secrets and mysteries. They weren't given any answers, so they settled for rumors and tall tales instead. Surely you remember some of the crazy nonsense that went around back then." Kai's disgusted grunt confirmed that he did indeed recall the whispered stories that had circulated both within the castle walls and without.

"A good bit of what people chose to believe back then made even less sense than the things Ragnarr is telling them now. It was the same with Hans. You remember the guards that day. They didn't want to let us come down here to see Elsa. They had their orders not to let anyone but the prince see her. They'd been told that Princess Anna was dead by her sister's hand, and that Elsa was a threat to all who came near her. And they believed it! It was the only story they'd been given, at least by anyone with authority, and none of them knew Elsa well enough to realize that she would never willingly do such a thing."

"But this is different," Kai protested. "They do know us! We haven't been hiding ourselves away from them for years. Surely, the people can't really believe that we would betray..."

"Oh, Ragnarr's been very cagey. His men haven't named names. They're making it out like they're simply holding everyone so that the guilty parties can't escape while they've being ferreted out. Naturally, those who are proven innocent will all be set free, in due time."

"You mean those who will swear loyalty to him." There was a venom in Kai's voice that Gerda had rarely heard before. "How can people fall for such lies?"

"Like I said, they're scared. Too much has happened this past year. First Coronation Day, then the Snow Queen, and now this coup. They can't keep up. They don't know who or what to believe anymore. Maybe they don't really believe these stories either, but I think they're also so confused that they can't simply dismiss them. Then, when you consider that nearly everyone who might be able to convince them otherwise is locked up in here or afraid that they're about to be… Well, the people want explanations, and some of them are just desperate enough to take whatever they're given."

"Surely there are some who aren't intimidated, who would tell them the truth. Not all of us fell into line behind Hans last time when his lies grew too big there near the end. I didn't. You didn't. Or… or are you afraid now, too?"

"Of course, I'm afraid," Gerda admitted freely. "How can I not be given the mess we're in? And who wouldn't be scared with a deranged madman on the throne? You never know what he might do next. But that doesn't mean I haven't been trying to set the story straight with those who will listen. I've had to be careful and quiet about it, but I'm doing what I can."

There was a smile in Kai's voice again when he replied, "I never doubted you."

"Liar," Gerda answered.

"But are there any others? One voice may not be enough. What about Colonel Holberg? He helped sneak us past his own men to see Elsa when she was imprisoned down here. And I never met a man more loyal to King Agdar and his girls." He paused, then snorted. "Which, come to think of it, means he's probably stuck in one of these cells by now, too."

"Actually," Gerda lowered her voice conspiratorially, "he's not."

"No? Where is he, then?"

"I don't know. No one does, near as I can tell. Ragnarr sent men to his house to collect him shortly after they'd secured the palace, but he and his family weren't there. They searched the neighbor's houses – ransacked would be a better word, actually – but they found no sign of them. I've heard whispers that someone from the garrison managed to get word to him after the confrontation at the gates, and that gave them just enough time to go into hiding before it was too late. I don't know if he had any other help, but if he did, then he chose his friends well. No one has admitted to seeing any sign of him, then or since."

Kai let slip a low whistle. "And while he was still recovering from his injuries. That old wolf Wexel would have been proud. He trained a mighty wily soldier in Fritz Holberg."

"Yes, but it's not like he can do much on his own, in hiding and wounded. Even if he organized the rest of the soldiers, all the weapons have been stripped from the garrison and locked away in the palace armory. Besides, Ragnarr has already shown how he plans to deal with any attempts at open resistance."

Kai frowned. "I suppose he could try to make his way to some of the other outposts around the kingdom. He might be able to find men and supplies there. Then again, Ragnarr almost certainly has plans of his own to deal with the forces outside the capitol. It might be a race to see who gets there first, which unfortunately doesn't bode well for a man burdened with a family and a limp."

"Well, I suppose the good news is that Ragnarr hasn't completely swayed many in Arendelle just yet. Hopefully that means there will still be some willing to help Fritz get wherever it is he plans to go. Then, we'll just have to hope we can all hold out until Elsa and Kristoff return with Anna. And don't you dare say, 'If,' Kai, or so help me..."

"I wasn't going to," he replied defensively. Inwardly, though, he burned a little with embarrassment. That very word had indeed popped straight into his mind immediately after Gerda's statement.

"Look," he said, attempting to cover the awkward moment, "we've both watched Arendelle weather its share of tough times lately. More than its share, when it comes right down to it. Ragnarr's first reign, the loss of a beloved king and queen, Hans's treachery. Each time, the kingdom has emerged stronger than it was before. I'm not saying it hasn't been painful, but I have faith that its people will survive this in the same way they have the problems of the past. We'll just need to be a little patient."

"I want to believe that, Kai. I do. But I worry that we're going to reach the point where it's just too much. Sooner or later, enough pressure will break anything, no matter how strong. What happens then? Who will put the pieces back together? Will there even be enough left to..."

"Sorry to interrupt this pleasant chat."

Gerda jumped as the unexpected voice spoke directly into her ear. She staggered backwards, and the blanket she'd been hugging fell from her arms and dropped to the floor. In the dim light, the figure that had spoken to her appeared to be little more than another shadow, only with a bit more solidity than those around it.

"Y-Your… Your..." she stammered. One hand rose to cover her heart, which was hammering so hard, she almost thought she could feel it slamming into her rib cage.

"What's going on?" Kai asked, pressing his face against the bars and trying to see through the little window. "Gerda, are you alright?"

The denser shadow moved forward and, as it did so, the narrow strip of light that spilled out into the passage slid across the man's face. Kai's expression hardened even as his worry for his friend grew.

"Ragnarr," he bit out.

" _King_ Ragnarr," the massive man replied. "It seems you have developed a nasty inability to recall the proper forms of address. I would expect your stay down here to last for at least as long as your memory problems persist."

Kai wanted to snap back with some creative suggestions for exactly where the other man could put his expectations, but he bit his tongue instead. Gerda also stood outside the door, easily within Ragnarr's reach. That made the prospect of antagonizing him far less appealing and much more dangerous.

"I hope the rest of your memory is in better condition," Ragnarr rumbled. He seemed to be getting undue enjoyment out of whatever game he thought they were playing. Something in his voice brought to mind images of a tomcat toying with a cornered mouse. "I have some questions for you, and if I do not find the answers to be satisfactory… Well, I will leave it up to you to decide whether or not you really want to learn what I might do if that were to happen."

"I''ll… I'll just be going then."

Before she had taken two steps, Gerda's arm was clamped in a vice-like grip. Ragnarr addressed her in a tone that made a mockery of politeness. "Oh, no. You must stay. I insist. After all, if everything I've been told is true, this little matter concerns you as well."

Metal jangled against metal as Ragnarr drew a ring of keys out of his pocket. He shoved one into the lock on the cell door, turned it with a click. Then he shouldered the door open and strode inside, dragging Gerda along behind him.

Kai quickly backed away to make room for the huge man. "What do you want?" He was trying to strike a balance between grudging deference and defiant bravado. Mostly, though, he just wanted to drag Ragnarr's attention back to him and away from Gerda.

"Nothing so terrible, really. I simply want you to tell me everything you know about this so-called Snow Queen."

"She… she came to take Queen Elsa," Gerda began, her speech faltering worse than ever. She seemed to be addressing the hand that had wrapped around her upper arm, as though it was the one demanding answers. "B-But when Her Majesty wouldn't go with her, sh-she took Princess Anna instead. Then the queen went after her to t-try and get her sister back, and… and..."

It pierced Kai's very soul to hear Gerda so distraught. Here was the selfsame friend who, as a little girl, had braved countless and unknown dangers to follow him when he had been taken by the Snow Queen. Yet now, this lone man was nearly frightening her out of her wits. His loathing for the former king deepened even further, then redoubled when Ragnarr shook the old woman roughly.

"Do not play games with me," he growled. "If that was all I wanted, I could have asked anyone in the kingdom. But I have been led to understand that the two of you have special knowledge of this woman. I order you to tell me everything that you know. Every detail. Leave nothing out."

"Why?" Kai asked, once again trying to draw all attention onto himself. "There's little, if anything, that those of us here can do about her. She's come and gone, and she seemed to have no great interest in Arendelle beyond Queen Elsa. Whatever may happen, I think that only those two can resolve it now."

"I did not ask you for your opinion!" Ragnarr's voice rose in volume, echoing slightly off the bare stone walls. "I do not care what you think! I'm only concerned with what you know. After all, you spent time with her, did you not? Long months as her prisoner? Surely you saw much, learned much during your captivity."

For a moment, Kai was stunned. How could Ragnarr possibly know about all that had happened to him back when he'd been but a child? It was a secret that only he and Gerda had shared for most of their lives, at least until they had confided in Queen Idun and King Agdar. Ah, but then he remembered. As Gerda had said earlier, they'd told all those secrets to the royal advisors in the wake of the Snow Queen's sudden appearance. Clearly, Kai was not the first to have been interrogated by Ragnarr.

"Yes," he admitted, seeing no reasonable way he could deny it. "Yes, I was her prisoner. But Gerda was not. She never met the Snow Queen. Never even saw her. There's nothing she can tell you that I can't, so you might as well just let her go."

"She helped you escape, didn't she? You didn't manage it on your own, so how did she do it? What was the secret? It seems plain to me that she must have discovered some weakness in this Snow Queen, and that seems like useful information. Should that witch ever decide to come back, it would be in the best interest of everyone in Arendelle to have that knowledge in the hands of those tasked with defending this kingdom. Wouldn't you agree?"

"There was no secret. There was no confrontation. The Snow Queen just happened to be away when Gerda finally found me. We didn't have to fight our way past her or anything. We learned nothing that could be any help in defeating her magic."

Ragnarr's free fist slammed into the wall behind him with the full force of his rage. "Do not take me for a fool!" he bellowed. "Do you expect me to believe that, after going to all that trouble to abduct you, this Snow Queen then simply turned around and left you alone and unguarded? Locked in a cell, were you, with the keys carefully hidden somewhere so secure that some sniveling little girl could walk right in and find them just like that? Is that what you're trying to tell me? Because that wasn't at all what it sounded like from the other tales you've been spreading."

"I wasn't in a cell," Kai admitted. He fought to keep his voice as calm as he possibly could. It would do no good to further enrage this man. He'd spotted Gerda's wince of pain when Ragnarr's fingers had convulsively tightened around her arm in his anger. "There was no need. The Snow Queen knew that I would not try to escape on my own."

"Ah!" There was a note of triumph in Ragnarr's voice. "Ah, now we're finally getting there." He took a step forward, pulling Gerda with him. The movement brought him out of the shadows and into the fading light that filtered through the frost-covered window. Despite himself, Kai tried to take another step back, but was blocked by the low stone bench behind him. All he could do instead was to lean away a little from the feverish madness that glinted in Ragnarr's eyes.

"Why? Why did she think that you would not run, hmm? If she left no physical barriers to keep you there, then what possible reason would she have to believe that you, her prisoner, would not attempt to flee in her absence?"

Kai swallowed, suddenly feeling a deep and personal understanding as to exactly why Gerda feared this man so very much. He had served in the castle as a minor staff member during Ragnarr's reign, had even received orders directly from him on a few rare occasions. He'd known the level of general anxiety that had permeated the place during those years. Everyone had gone about on eggshells, dreading that they might be the unfortunate soul to awaken the next of the king's all-too-frequent bouts of anger. But this… this was something else entirely.

"Have you no answers for your king?" Ragnarr pressed. "Do you need me to help loosen your tongue? If so, then perhaps I can make things a bit easier for you."

Kai's eyes darted over to Gerda, instantly dreading the horrible things that might be done to her on the pretense of getting Ragnarr his answers. The next second, she disappeared. Ragnarr had bent forward, and his large bulk now blocked everything else from Kai's sight. The man's hot breath stank in Kai's nostrils as he leaned closer still.

"What did she take from you?"

The question seemed almost like a whisper, at least in comparison to the earlier bellicose shouting. It took a moment for Kai to realize that Ragnarr had simply spoken in a normal tone of voice. Then again, the delay could have been due to the stunned shock that had temporarily paralyzed his brain.

"What?" he gasped.

"The Snow Queen, she took something from you, didn't she? She took your memories. What did she take? How much did she take? That was why she knew you wouldn't leave, wasn't it? Because you couldn't remember that you had anything to return to."

Kai simply stared back at the weathered face and the hungry expression it wore. Its dark eyes bored into his own, clearly searching for something: information, confirmation, vindication. At last, unable to bear the scrutiny any longer, he wordlessly moved his head up and down a fraction of an inch.

It was the smallest nod imaginable, but it seemed enough to satisfy Ragnarr. He straightened, his lips parting in an unpleasant smile. "But you remember now, don't you? Somehow, something brought your memories back." He turned slowly and looked down at Gerda. "Or someone."

There was a second stone bench set low against the wall by the door. Using only the hand that had kept its grip on her upper arm this entire time, Ragnarr dragged the frightened cook around and shoved her unceremoniously down onto it. Bending low and placing one large hand against the wall on either side of her head, he glowered at her. To her credit, Gerda returned his gaze, though she was trembling uncontrollably.

"How?" he asked. His voice was still pitched conversationally, but it seemed to have picked up an undertone of dangerous desperation. "How did you do it? How did you bring back his memories? What did you do to him? I need to know."

Gerda's mouth worked, but no sound came out. She shook her head, as if hoping that would be enough. It was not.

"I! Need! To! KNOW!"

Ragnarr punctuated each word by driving a fist into the stone beside Gerda's ear. She squeezed her eyes shut, yet still flinched with every blow.

"She cried!" Kai bellowed from across the room.

Ragnarr spun around, yet he made sure he stood so as to block Gerda's escape should she have any thoughts of fleeing the room. "She… cried?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes." Any fear Kai might have felt for himself had been totally forgotten in the face of his friend's distress. "When she found me, I was all but dead from the cold. I would have died, should have died, except that the Snow Queen wanted me alive. Gerda, she just held me. She whispered my name, she held me, and… and she cried."

Ragnarr looked from Kai down to Gerda and back again. "That can't have been it. I refuse to believe that was all she did. What else? There had to have been something else!"

"There was nothing else!" Kai insisted, matching Ragnarr's volume for the first time. The two men glared fiercely at each other, both their bodies tensing as though readying for a fight, even though there was no doubt in either of their minds who would win should it come to that.

Both of their heads whipped around at the barely audible noise that issued from the room's remaining occupant. It had been singularly unintelligible, yet there had been the unmistakable cadence of speech to it.

"What?" Ragnarr demanded. "What was that? What did you say, woman?"

"The psalm," she said again, loud enough to be heard this time even though her voice was shaking badly. "I sang a psalm while I was holding Kai."

"A psalm?" Ragnarr repeated the word, disbelief evident in both his face and voice. Then a thoughtful look replaced the skepticism, and he began to nod slowly to himself. "A psalm. Yes, I suppose that would make sense. How better to drive out the work of a demon than with holy words! Which was it? Which psalm? It might not matter, maybe any would do, but why take the chance?"

He dropped to his knees, grabbed Gerda by the shoulders, and shook her once again. "Which psalm? Tell me. I have to know. Tell me! Now!"

And in a quiet, quavering, sing-song voice, Gerda replied:

 _Our roses bloom and fade away,  
Our infant Lord abides alway.  
May we be blessed his face to see  
And ever little children be._

Ragnarr's lips moved as he repeated the words under his breath. He paused, the look on his face suggesting that he was waiting for something. Then he closed his eyes and, appearing to concentrate intently, chanted the verse again. There followed a second pause, longer this time. Finally, he swore loudly and, climbing to his feet, began to pace back and forth in the confined space. He was muttering to himself, almost seeming to have forgotten that there were still two others in the cell with him.

"It didn't work. It didn't work. Why didn't it work? Maybe… maybe you can't do it to yourself. Maybe someone else must do it for you. Is that possible? Bah, it's magic. Who knows what the bloody rules are? Still, I should try. The bishop. Yes, I'll have the bishop speak the psalm over me. A holy man to give voice to the holy words. And I shall be anointed with holy water. Why not? Drive the devil out of my head. Everything restored again to its proper place, in my mind and upon the throne. The world as it should be, as it should always have been. Yes. Yes, I must arrange for it at once. I have waited far too long already."

Kai watched with a strange fascination as the man stalked repeatedly across the cell. Suddenly and without warning, Ragnarr spun on his heel and marched straight out into the passage beyond. Before either Kai or Gerda could move, the heavy wooden door slammed shut behind him.

"I see now that you both deserve imprisonment," barked the brusque voice, "for you have both been tainted by the wicked monster that styles herself as the Snow Queen. Perhaps, if the information you have given me proves useful, I might reconsider my decision. Until then, however, I do hope you enjoy each other's company."

"Wait!" yelled Kai, hurrying to the door. "Wait! Let Gerda go! She hasn't done anything to you! Keep me in here if you must, but for heaven's sake, let her go!"

"It's no use, Kai," Gerda said with a shuddering sigh. "He's already gone."

The steward turned to look at his friend, and though she was dabbing absently at her eyes, she seemed remarkably composed considering their situation and what she had just gone through. "Are you alright?" he asked.

Gerda sniffed once, but nodded. She gestured after Ragnarr with a tilt of her head. "Men like that expect to be feared," she said. "I just gave him what he wanted." She reached up and massaged her arm. Then, with a shaky smile, she added, "It wasn't all that difficult."

Kai sat down beside her on the unforgiving bench. "I'm sorry. You come down here just to offer some food and comfort, and to help take my mind off things, and now you're stuck in here with me too. Not exactly a proper repayment for your good deeds."

But Gerda dismissed his apology with a wave of her hand. "Oh, pish! Ragnarr already knew that we'd both gotten mixed up with the Snow Queen before. He'd have dragged me into it sooner or later, and then he'd almost certainly have dragged me down here too. At least this way, I'm in it with a friend."

"Tell me," Kai asked puckishly, "did Princess Anna get her hopelessly optimistic streak from all the time she spent growing up around you, or was it the other way around?"

"Neither. I'm simply a pragmatist, as you very well know."

"Mm," he replied noncommittally. "Is that why you told Ragnarr exactly what he wanted to know?"

"No," she corrected him. "I told him what he wanted to hear, but it won't help him one bit. _You_ told him what he needed to know. It isn't my fault that he's too much of a fool to realize it."

Kai nodded. "King Agdar guessed that his father had encountered the Snow Queen while hunting up in Lapland. He came back from that trip ready to take all of Arendelle to war against her, though at the time, he wouldn't tell anybody why or even who it was they would be attacking. We never really knew what she did to drive him so completely over the edge like that. Now, I suppose we do."

"I suppose so. But whatever memories she might have taken from him, you and I both know that the psalm won't help to get them back. No doubt he'll find that out for himself soon enough. That won't be pleasant for either of us, I'm sure."

"I'm afraid you're right. It wasn't your words that saved me all those years ago. My heart had been frozen almost as badly as poor Anna's was. What brought me back was something that I doubt a man like Ragnarr will ever know. More's the pity. If he did, maybe he wouldn't even be that sort of man to begin with."

The conversation faltered then as they both contemplated the fury that would likely erupt from the usurping king once he discovered just how unhelpful their help had truly been.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry, too."

Kai blinked stupidly at his friend. "I can't possibly imagine why. You've done absolutely nothing wrong in this whole matter."

"And don't I know it!" Gerda responded with a disgruntled snort.

"Then what in the world do you have to be sorry about?"

"I'm sorry," she said with a wistful look at the door, "that you didn't take that blanket when I offered it to you. It isn't exactly warm down here, is it?" She shivered, and Kai felt certain it wasn't all for show.

Still, he chuckled. Walking over to the other bench, he picked up the thin coverlet that he'd been sleeping under every night. Then he brought it back and wrapped it around Gerda's shoulders. Picking up the plate of food he had set aside earlier while they had been talking though the door, he placed it in her lap. "Eat. I'm it afraid isn't as hot as it was when it first arrived, and unfortunately, we seem to be fresh out of glogg. But I'm sure it's still good all the same. It was made by a dear friend of mine who is a most excellent cook. Or so I've been told."

"Really?" asked Gerda gruffly. "Well, we'll just see about that, now won't we?" Picking up the spoon, she scooped a small morsel out of the bowl and transferred it to her mouth. Immediately, she wrinkled up her face in disgust. "Oh, my! That's absolutely terrible. Honestly, I don't think I could stand another bite. If you can stomach it, it's all yours and with my blessing." She tried to push the plate into his hands instead.

Kai smiled. Taking the spoon from her, he tried a bite of his own. "You're quite right," he said. "Positively dreadful. But, seeing as the menu at this establishment is rather limited, I suppose we will simply have to make do. Shall we split it then?"

"Oh, very well. If we must."

One spoonful at a time, they each took turns at the meager meal. All too quickly, their shared bowl was emptied. Kai reached up then and, wrapping his arm across her shoulders, drew Gerda close against his side. Leaning their heads together, they quietly closed their eyes. They did not share another word then or for some time thereafter, yet the stone walls of the dungeon melted away for them both.

And in their minds' eyes, they sat instead upon the eaves of two adjoining roofs with the windows of their small garret homes at their backs. The quiet drone of a bumblebee buzzed lazily around them. A canopy of green arched over their heads, with little flecks of sunlight slipping through here and there. The cold of their cell was replaced with the warmth of spring, and their nostrils were filled with the scent of roses.


	21. Now I Lay Me Down

Civilization was becoming scarce as Elsa, Kristoff, and Sven continued their drive northward. People – both travelers and tenants – were spread so far apart that they could go days without encountering anyone. Now and again, they would spot a small knot of buildings clustered together at the edge of a forest or peering out from the shelter of a narrow valley, but these were generally too small to even be considered a village.

As for inns, they had become but a memory of warm sleep at the end of a long day's journey. They now spent most nights wherever they happened to be when Sven was too tired to continue. For reindeer and driver, this was little more than a return to their ice harvesting roots, when they'd often bedded down to weather the cold mountain nights in whatever meager shelter they'd been able to find. Kristoff had been somewhat worried how a queen, who'd spent most of her life sleeping on thick cotton mattresses, would fare. At least at first. In hindsight, it occurred to him that he really must not have thought the whole business through all that carefully.

With his final bite of bread, he wiped the last vestiges of dinner from his metal camping plate. A fistful of snow then served to clean it well enough to be ready for use again the next day. He glanced over at Sven to see whether he might be interested in one more carrot before they called it a night, but the weary reindeer was already fast asleep.

Kristoff was incredibly proud of his oldest friend. They were covering more ground each day than he could have possibly hoped when they'd first set out. He still suspected that Elsa was helping in some subtle way, probably by tweaking the snow beneath their runners. When they began to slow down at the end of the day, he could never be sure how much of it was due to Sven's own exhaustion and how much was caused by Elsa's drooping eyes. He never asked, either. They were all pushing themselves to their limits, and Elsa's admonition to him shortly after they'd started had been weighing on his mind more and more lately. How much would any of them have left when they finally caught up to the Snow Queen? To Anna.

Elsa barely stirred when he picked up the empty plate that lay on the ground beside her. She just continued to stare sleepily into the dwindling remains of their fire. He cleaned her dish too, along with the rest of the cooking gear, then stowed it all in the back of the sled. She remained oblivious to him even when he walked back and stood beside her, arms crossed, looking at her with an expression of almost fraternal concern.

"I believe it's past your bedtime, Your Majesty."

She didn't even jump, though he would have sworn she hadn't realized he was there. She simply looked up at him muzzily for a second. Then an enormous yawn gripped her, and he had to smile a little as she struggled to stifle it. When it finally subsided, she nodded. "Think you could put out the fire tonight?"

"I suspect so," he replied as he bent down and began smothering the remaining embers with more handfuls of snow. As often as not, Elsa would take care of this minor task. It ordinarily only took a flick of a finger for her to douse whatever flames still lingered. That she was asking him to do it spoke to exactly how tired she must be.

He watched out of the corner of his eye as she pushed herself to her feet. He nearly jumped up when he saw her stumble slightly, but she righted herself almost at once. Her eyes were already half closed as she began to walk toward the place where Sven lay sleeping. Kristoff hurried to finish his task, stomping on top of the new snow pile for good measure, then walked quickly over to join Elsa where she now stood, swaying ever so slightly.

"You know, you don't have to do this tonight," he told her, gripping her arm lightly just above the elbow. "There's a tent in the sled. I can have it up in just a couple of minutes."

"Tents are so drafty," she mumbled, her words the tiniest bit slurred. "And noisy. Wind just makes them flap, flap, flap all night long. How can anybody sleep through that?"

Privately, based on the way Elsa looked right then, Kristoff thought it likely that she would have been able to sleep through a blizzard, an avalanche, and an earthquake combined.

"I'm just saying, I wouldn't mind. You're obviously tired, so why don't you let me..."

"No," she said, blinking her eyes and shaking her head a bit as if to clear it. "No, I'm alright. I can do this."

"Are you sure?"

"Kristoff, if I _can't_ do even this, then what chance will we possibly have against the Snow Queen?"

 _It'll be a lot better if you aren't half asleep then,_ he thought. But he didn't bother to say anything because Elsa had already screwed up her face in concentration. That wasn't exactly a good sign either. He'd seen her do this before with only a few casual waves of her hand. Of course, on those occasions, she hadn't spent most of the daylight hours struggling to push her magic in new directions in an attempt to grow stronger, preparing for what they both feared would be the inevitable confrontation. Obviously, the effort was taking its toll.

He watched as she closed her eyes and cocked her head slightly to one side, as though listening. Then she raised her arms in front of her, separated from each other by an almost ninety-degree angle. He took a step backward to give her room. Usually when she did this, she would select a broad, open area in which to work. He'd already been wondering why she'd actually moved closer to Sven tonight. Perhaps she was more tired than she realized. "Elsa," he began.

"Don't. Move," she said. He opted not to argue.

Blue-white light flickered upon her fingertips. And flicker it did: appearing, disappearing, reappearing, much like the last tongues of flame had in their little fire. Kristoff realized that he was holding his breath as he watched. And yet, even though he recognized this fact, his lungs simply did not seem capable of exhaling just then.

It seemed as if the light kept changing shape, as though it couldn't make up its mind what it wanted to be. One instant, it was a dusting of sparkles; the next, tiny forks of lightning. Sometimes, multiple forms coexisted simultaneously. Its dance was almost mesmerizing, and yet slightly unnerving. He didn't think he'd ever seen Elsa's magic behave in quite this fashion. He wished he knew what that meant.

Slowly, Elsa brought her outstretched arms together until her hands were nearly touching directly in front of her. She held that pose for a second, then another. Kristoff began to wonder just how much more of this his lungs could take. He'd never before had a reason to time how long he could hold his breath.

Elsa's next movement was so sudden, he wouldn't have had time to react even if he'd had a clue how to. She swung her arms out wide so that they arced around her body. A flat sheet of what looked like either glowing ice or frozen light flew outward from her hands. Kristoff had a split second in which he recognized the pattern. He'd caught a brief glimpse of it once before in the Ice Palace when he'd been making his way up the sweeping staircase in his search for Anna. This looked exactly like the blast of magic that had struck her in the heart and begun the slow process of turning her into solid ice.

He didn't even have time to tense up before the magic was upon him. Then it was past him, and then it was gone. His breath exploded out of him as his mittened hands slapped at his chest, but that was a mere reflex reaction. There was no pain there, no sense of cold. In fact, he'd felt nothing at all. It had looked as if the blast had passed clean through him, but it seemed that, somehow, it had done no such thing. Instead, it had simply flowed around him, like water hugging the curves of a rock that stood in the middle of a river.

And now, surrounding him and Elsa and Sven, stood a small, hexagonal yurt made entirely out of ice. It was in every way identical to the ones she had made for them on other nights when there was no other shelter handy. The only difference was that, in the past, they'd always been outside the hut when she'd made it and had simply walked in through the door when she was done.

He had been right. This was definitely something new. He'd never seen Elsa do anything like this.

Before he could say anything, however, Elsa's knees buckled. He quickly grabbed her, holding her up as she slumped weakly against him. Without a second thought, he picked her up and carried her the few paces to where Sven lay, still sleeping and completely unaware that anything unusual had happened. Carefully, he laid Elsa down beside the reindeer, pillowing her head upon its hairy flank in the same position in which he himself slept so often.

As he straightened and gazed down at her, he saw that her eyes were lightly closed. A stray lock of hair that hung down over her face fluttered gently with each slow breath. Upon her sleeping features was a look of utter peace and contentment. As always, the snow beneath her was all the mattress Elsa ever needed.

Looking around the little yurt, Kristoff simply shook his head in amazed disbelief. Then he reached down and tucked the loose strands back into place. "Sleep well, Your Majesty," he whispered. "I'm pretty sure you've earned it."

• • •

He was woken the next morning by a puzzled honk from Sven. Pulling his woolen cap off his eyes, Kristoff glanced over at his friend. The reindeer had lifted his head up off the snow and was examining the walls that had materialized around them while he'd slept. Only when he saw Kristoff wrapped in a blanket a short distance away did he turn and realize that the body curled against his side was Elsa's.

"You okay there, buddy?"

Sven's head swiveled back and forth between the sleeping woman and the ice harvester before finally fixing on the face that it had known the longest. Thanks to their lifelong friendship, Kristoff was able to read the unspoken question off the furry features.

" _Um, what did I miss?"_

"I'm not entirely sure myself," he answered as he extricated himself from the blanket and got to his feet, "but I think it's safe to say that Elsa figured out something about her magic last night. It must have taken a lot of out her, though. She fell asleep before I could ask her any questions."

Crossing the small space, he squatted down and gently shook a slender shoulder. "Elsa? It's time to get up and get going. We've got another long day ahead of us."

Elsa turned her face away, burying her nose deeper into Sven's fur. Some mumbled words that might have been, "Five more minutes, Papa," managed to escape her lips.

Kristoff frowned, but finally decided that he wasn't quite ready yet to order the Queen of Arendelle out of bed if she wasn't willing. All the same, he had a sneaking suspicion that, once she was awake, she might find herself begrudging the lost time. So he settled on a compromise. Rolling up the blanket that had kept him warm during the night, he glanced meaningfully at Sven. Then, with the careful coordination they'd earned through their years skirting the edge of precipitous cliffs together, he quickly tucked it beneath Elsa's head just as Sven shifted out of the way. The only reaction she gave was to adjust her position slightly, the better to nuzzle more comfortably into her new pillow.

As Sven got to his hooves, Kristoff jerked his head toward the hut door. "Come on," he said quietly. "Let's go get the sled ready." He gave Elsa's sleeping form one more concerned glance, then the two slipped out as silently as they could.

He briefly considered kindling a new fire in the hopes that the smells of a freshly cooked breakfast might help spur Elsa to wakefulness. That would take time, though, and rather defeat the purpose of an early start. Dinner was usually the only meal they bothered to prepare over a fire, since darkness and exhaustion combined each evening to force them to stop anyway. The rest of the time, they mostly ate their food cold while traveling, wasting as little time as possible.

But Elsa's prolonged weariness continued to trouble him. None of them had been getting as much sleep as they would have liked during this long trek, setting out early every morning and only giving up well after dark each night. Even so, Elsa had so far always managed to drag herself out of her slumber to help him break camp. There wasn't really all that much to do, but she joined him anyway because she had at least as much reason as he did to want to hurry after Anna. Her collapse the night before and his inability to properly rouse her now seemed like signs of a potentially ominous problem. As if they needed another one.

So he finished stowing away the few items that they'd taken out the night before. Then he double-checked to make sure everything was securely packed and wouldn't go sliding around or, heaven forbid, bounce out of the sled if they took a bump a little too fast. Satisfied with the state of their cargo, he guided Sven around and strapped him securely into his harness.

With that complete, deer and man exchanged expectant looks. Turning as one, they stared at the door of their little ice hut. All the preparations they could make for their departure were complete, and yet Elsa still had not joined them.

" _Do you think she's sick?"_ Kristoff asked in Sven's voice.

"I don't know, Sven. I sure hope not. Medicine and healing were always Grandpabbie's specialties. If Elsa's come down with something, I doubt I'm going to be much help. And we'll need her healthy when we get where we're going." He scowled. "I'll go check on her, and we'll hope she's just really tired, okay?"

Sven snorted his agreement, then watched Kristoff duck back into the yurt.

Elsa was exactly where they'd left her. She hadn't even rolled over in her sleep. Keeping his footfalls as light as he could make them, Kristoff walked over to her. As he crouched beside her again, he tugged off one of his mittens and placed his bare hand upon her forehead. He might never be a healer of any sort, but he knew enough to be able to check for a fever. The problem, he quickly realized, was that Elsa's skin always seemed unusually cold to the touch, and that was still true even now. If she happened to be less cold than usual, he really couldn't tell.

"Elsa," he said quietly. "Elsa, I've finished the last of the packing. Everything's ready to go except you. Are you alright? Because if you're not, then maybe we could rest here for today. I'll unharness Sven, light a fire, and we could try again tomorrow morning. Elsa?"

With a groan, Elsa pushed herself up on one elbow. She tried unsuccessfully to blink the sleep from her eyes, but they didn't seem to want to open more than halfway. "Tomorrow?" she said muzzily. "Is it tomorrow already?"

"Well, it's the morning after you went to sleep, if that's what you mean," Kristoff answered. "But now I'm definitely thinking it might be best to hold off traveling for another day yet. You don't seem like yourself this morning. And as long as you can find Olaf with your magic, then I suppose one more day won't make much diff-"

He was forced to swallow the rest of the word when Elsa pressed her fingers firmly against his mouth and shook her head. "No," she said groggily. "Anna's… trouble. She needs you. Me. Us. I just… just..." Her eyelids slid shut and her head began to sag. Then her arm nearly gave way beneath her, and the sudden jolt startled her to semi-alertness again.

"I'm awake. I'm awake," she announced. "I just… I… Um, what was I saying?"

"That you need to lie down and go back to sleep." Kristoff placed a hand on her shoulder and tried to push her back onto the rolled-up blanket, but it appeared that her stubbornness had at least awakened, if nothing else.

"No." She shrugged him off, then struggled into a sitting position. "No, I'm fine. I'm just a little tired, that's all. But we shouldn't be wasting time worrying about me. We need to get after Anna."

"And what good will it do her if you're dead on your feet when we get there?" he asked, extending another restraining hand as she began trying to stand.

Elsa closed her eyes. For one brief moment, Kristoff allowed himself to believe that this might actually be the easiest argument he'd ever managed to win against her. That fantasy burst like a soap bubble as soon as she spoke. "They're still so far ahead of us. We won't be catching up to them for a while yet. I'll be able to sleep tomorrow night… er, tonight. Whenever. The point is, we still have time. Too much time. I won't make Anna wait for us any longer than she has to, so we'd best get going."

When Kristoff did not remove his hand, she glared at him. "I am still your queen, Kristoff. I order you to let me up this instant. Or else!"

"To be honest, I think I'm more scared of what Anna might do to me if she finds out I let you get sick."

"Fine! You can't say I didn't warn you!" And with a flourish, she whirled her hand through the air in a long and graceful arc.

From the ground around them, a ring of snowflakes puffed up a few inches into the air. They then drifted gently down and settled right back where they had originally been.

Nearly identical looks of surprise registered on both of their faces. "Um," Kristoff began cautiously, "what was that supposed to be?

"Far more impressive," Elsa answered, her eyebrows contracting in consternation. Her face disappeared behind her hands for a second. Then she dragged her fingers downward across her eyes, her cheeks, her chin. "This shouldn't be so difficult."

"Hey, I'm not the one who's being difficult."

"No, not this." She waved a hand to indicate the both of them. "This!" She twirled her hand lazily through the air. "My magic."

"Oh," Kristoff said, though silently feeling that he'd just traded one confusion for another. "But I thought you'd worked it out last night."

"So did I," Elsa answered with a sigh. "I should have known it wouldn't be that easy."

"Um, should I even ask what exactly _it_ is?"

Elsa frowned, but whatever irritation she was feeling didn't seem to be directed at him. Rather, it appeared she was having trouble making enough sense of her own thoughts to be able to explain them in any way that might also make sense to him. Her gaze wandered around the small room, as if she hoped the right words might be written on one of the walls somewhere. But it was only when she looked out the still open door that she seemed to find what she was searching for.

"You never tie Sven up at night," she said.

Kristoff glanced out the door to where the reindeer stood still hitched to the sled. He wasn't at all sure where Elsa was going with this, but he had asked the question. He'd have to take the answer in whatever way she felt she could give it to him.

"No," he agreed. "When I first found him, he tried to run away, but he wasn't exactly in any fit shape to make it very far. By the time I'd helped nurse him back to health, I guess he'd decided that he didn't want to run anymore. I suppose he didn't have anyplace else to go. Since then, I've never really needed to bother tying him up or locking him in the stables or anything."

Elsa nodded. "He trusts you."

"I suppose so." Then, with a shrug, he added, "We trust each other."

"I never trusted my magic," she said. "Not really. I mean, when I was very young, before the accident, I wasn't so afraid of it. But even so, all my parents' warnings always made me… careful. I think I knew that it frightened them, and I didn't want them to be scared, especially because, when they were, it always felt a little like they were scared of me. So, from the time I truly understood what I could do, I was always trying to hold it back. Even when I used my magic, I used the smallest amount possible, and I would clamp down on it as soon as I was done."

Now Kristoff thought he could see where this was going. "You kept it tied up."

She nodded again. "You know how I've been talking to Fare?"

Kristoff tried to keep the unease off his face. He still didn't feel entirely comfortable with the notion that Elsa had another… something in her head that only whispered to her in her dreams. Still, he kept telling himself that – in a world with ice magic, memory-erasing Snow Queens, and yes, even rock trolls – it really wasn't _that_ strange. So far, though, his self still wasn't quite buying it.

"Uh huh," he said.

"Well, she says that was a mistake. That, if I want to unlock my full potential, I need to trust my magic the same way that you trust Sven."

"And you believe her?"

"I think so. It… it feels right. I just needed some help to even realize what I was doing. I've been holding it so tightly for so long, I barely even knew that I was doing it. You'd think it would be easy, wouldn't you? After all, it's like… how hard can it be to just stop clenching a muscle? But I'm having to fight a lifetime's worth of instincts. And then here's the other problem."

"We have more problems?"

Elsa smiled, a little sadly. "You could say that my magic has to learn to trust me too. If it doesn't, then it could be Coronation Day all over again."

"Was that what happened last night? You and your magic started trusting each other?"

She turned pensive. "I think so. Something like that, anyway. At least the magic did what I asked it to without me having to control it so tightly. But now, I wonder if maybe I was just so tired that I dropped the reins, so to speak. It's been an exhausting tug of war, trying to relearn how to use my powers."

"But… you've been using them every day, haven't you?"

"Of course," Elsa replied. You've seen me practicing."

"No, I didn't mean that. I meant whatever you've been doing to help us go faster all this time."

Elsa's eyes grew wide as surprise colored her cheeks. Well, at least that confirmed Kristoff's suspicions, although she had clearly believed him oblivious to whatever she'd been doing. Fortunately, she didn't attempt to deny it.

"Well... yes. Like I said, it's been a tug of war. I've been doing whatever I could to help speed us along our way, but right now, I only know how to do that the way I've always done it."

"So let me get this straight. You've been spending every day trying to learn an entirely new way to use your magic, all while continuing to use the old way at the same time?"

"I didn't know what else to do."

Kristoff looked at Elsa with admiring exasperation. It was a look he'd perfected with Anna quite some time ago. "You know that's crazy, right? No wonder you're so worn out."

"I'm open to other suggestions."

"Okay, here's one. How about you let Sven and me worry about the driving, and you focus on the magic?"

"But that would mean that..."

"That we might get there a little later, but we'll be far better prepared when we do. Personally, I think that's kind of important. And so do you."

Elsa blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"You said it yourself last night," Kristoff said, straightening a little and with a smug look on his face. "'If I can't even do this, then what chance will we possibly have against the Snow Queen?' Your words. Or are you going to try and tell me that you were just so tired, you didn't even realize what you were saying?"

She opened her mouth to argue. Then she closed it, apparently preferring to rely instead on a vexed scowl to get her feelings across. She obviously did not appreciate her own words being turned against her.

Viewing this as an opening, Kristoff attempted to push his advantage. "See! You know I'm right." He cocked his head and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Besides, even though Sven may like you, we both know that he won't budge a single inch if I don't tell him to. And since I don't think you're in any shape to fly all of us off on a slab of ice right now..."

The look she gave him could have peeled the lacquer off his sled. "And what's to keep me from agreeing to do exactly what you say, then continuing to use my magic anyway?"

He held up his bare hand and began to tick off fingers. "One, I figured out that you were doing it in the first place, didn't I? That's because: two, Sven and I have been doing this long enough that I know how fast he ought to be able to go on his own without any of your help. And three, if you're as exhausted when we make camp tonight as you were last night, then I can tell Sven to stop there just as easily."

"But you wouldn't! You want to reach Anna as much as I do."

"Correction: I want to reach Anna, then I want to set her free, and then I want us – all of us – to get out of there and back to Arendelle as quickly as possible. Pretty sure we're going to need you in top form for those last bits. Besides, there's also reason number four."

"Which is?"

"If you were really considering using your magic without telling me, then you wouldn't have told me you were considering it."

A silent staring match ensued between the two of them. Finally though, recognizing that she'd pretty well let herself get backed into a corner and now really had no other choice in the matter, Elsa grudgingly gave in, albeit not without a bit of a huff. "Fine. No more magical travel assistance. Satisfied?"

Smiling, Kristoff simply stood and offered a hand to help her up. Elsa considered it briefly, her irritation with him vying with her good manners. In the end, she accepted his assistance, even managing to appear not entirely ungrateful as she did so. As she rose, she scooped up the blanket roll. "I'll just stow this then, and we can be off."

"You might just want to keep it with you," he suggested.

Her eyes had rolled halfway toward the ceiling before she thought better of it. Instead, she spoke in that tone of strained patience one uses when addressing a young child who has just asked why for the twentieth time in a row. "Kristoff, you know perfectly well that the cold doesn't bother me."

"No, but that hard driver's bench does. And if a long morning of practice should wear you out and you suddenly decide that a little nap might be in order to help regain your strength, I just thought it might come in handy."

She almost started to argue the matter on general principle, but she really couldn't. Not in good conscience anyway. After the night she'd just had, he was right. It made sense, and being churlish about it wasn't going to get them on the road any sooner. So she simply nodded, tucked the blanket under one arm, and walked out the door of the tiny ice building.

Sven greeted her appearance with a happy shimmy and a reindeer-ish smile. Giving his muzzle an affectionate scratch as she walked past, Elsa leaned in close and whispered into his ear. "Looks like you're going to be on your own today." Somewhat to her surprise, he responded by lifting his head up proudly and straightening his back, rather like a soldier coming to attention. She laughed in spite of herself, then felt her cheeks burn from embarrassment as the laugh stretched into a broad yawn. She was grateful that Kristoff chose to ignore it as they both climbed up into the sled.

With a twitch of the reins and a hearty, "Let's go, Sven," they set off once again.

• • •

Their progress was indeed slower that day, but by unspoken mutual agreement, neither of them commented on it. Sven still maintained a respectable pace. The supplies they'd brought with them certainly weighed less than the large blocks of ice he was used to hauling, and they'd grown all the lighter as the days had passed and food had slowly disappeared.

Elsa did her best to hide her impatience at their reduced speed, trying instead to focus all her attention on relaxing into her magic. Unfortunately, focusing on relaxing was every bit as oxymoronic as it sounded, and it was difficult not to let her mind wander. Once that happened, it didn't take long for her worries and anxieties to start gnawing away at her. Thoughts of the kingdom she had left behind and the sister she was rushing to save ate away at her concentration. The hand motions she normally used to shape her magic would slowly give way to fretful wringing instead. Little by little, her hands would lower into her lap as her arms would pull tightly against her sides. Then Kristoff would wordlessly glance over, concern plain upon his face. She would realize what she was doing, and the whole cycle would start over again.

So the morning passed, Elsa's frustration growing plainer with every hour. Only her continued fatigue kept her temper in check. She was doing her best to remain awake and alert – Kristoff suspected that she was trying to prove to him that he was worried about nothing – but he caught her fluttering hands frequently slipping up to her mouth to cover yet another stifled yawn.

By midday, after they'd shared their usual light lunch, she finally resigned herself to the inevitable. Arranging the blanket to provide as comfortable a seat as she could manage, she heaved a sigh, closed her eyes, and invited sleep to come and claim her for a while. It wasn't long at all before her unconscious body slid along the bench back and her head came to rest on Kristoff's shoulder. He didn't mind, of course, although it did give him pause when he realized that the Queen of Arendelle was using him for a pillow. His life had certainly changed of late.

The sun was well on its way toward the horizon and Elsa was still asleep when Sven slowed his canter to a walk.

"What's the matter, buddy?" Kristoff asked, rousing himself. He hadn't nodded off exactly, but he'd allowed himself to fall into the trance of the road. The gentle motion of the sleigh beneath him, the sounds of Elsa's steady breathing so close to his ear, and the relatively flat and easy going had all lulled him with their rhythmic monotony. So it now took him a few moments to gather his bearings. "Getting tired already? Guess we didn't appreciate just how much Elsa was helping us, huh?"

But then he fell silent and began to look around nervously, in almost exactly the same way that he had realized Sven was doing. "What is it, Sven?" he asked, his voice much quieter this time. "Do you smell something?" Thoughts of wolves immediately sprang to mind.

They were in the bottom of a shallow defile that wound its way through a series of large hills. While the road itself was broad and clear, the slopes to either side were thick with scrub. Even with most of their leaves stripped by the winter, almost anything could have been hiding in the tangled brambles. His head darted back and forth, watching for any telltale movement that might indicate what was coming, or at least what direction it was coming from.

At times like this, Kristoff devoutly wished that his friend really could put his thoughts into words. Whenever danger had borne down on them in the past, their best bet had always been to try and outrun it, and that's what instinct was urging him to do now. The trouble was, for all he knew, the danger could be directly in front of them. Spurring Sven blindly onward might only make matters worse. Then again, the reindeer hadn't stopped; he'd just slowed down. So did that mean the way ahead was clear?

"Elsa," he breathed, trying to elbow her out of her slumber and free his trapped arm at the same time. "Elsa, wake up." She stirred, mumbled something he couldn't make out, but otherwise slept on. "Elsa!" He really could have used another pairs of eyes right about then.

A sudden bellow whipped his head around to the right. Then another sounded on the opposite side of the road. At last, he felt Elsa's body jerk awake and pull away from his side. "Kristoff, what's going on?" she asked blearily. He was not given time to answer.

Two men burst out of the underbrush where they'd been hiding, waiting for the perfect moment to spring their ambush. One of their fellows was charging in from the other side. All three were brandishing wicked looking weapons. One carried an axe and another a long-bladed knife, both of which they'd need to get close to use properly. But the third held a crossbow and was working to bring it to bear as he ran. Kristoff snapped the reins, but Sven's legs were already churning, fighting to reclaim the speed he'd shed earlier.

It was nearly enough, but the lone man leaped and grabbed on to the side of the sled. Hauling himself up so that he was standing on the runner, he reached out and snatched at Elsa. His fingers closed around her wrist. A lascivious grin spread across his face as he lifted his knife, preparing to strike.

The next thing Kristoff knew, the bandit was howling again, but this time in shock and pain. He let go of Elsa's arm, pulled back his hand, and stared at it. His fingers were completely covered in ice. Before he could do anything more, a giant ball of snow slammed into his face, knocking him off balance. His arms pinwheeled for a moment, then he tumbled backward, rolling through the drifts in a tangle of limbs and profanity.

A crossbow bolt whizzed past Kristoff's ear, and he reflexively ducked away from it even though it had already missed. Their first three attackers were all behind them now, but they were given no time to enjoy the illusion that they might have escaped. Other figures were springing out from concealment and racing forward, looking to waylay the travelers by any means possible.

Sven swung left and right, slaloming among the brigands. Kristoff kicked out over the side, knocking back those who got too close. Elsa was waving her arms about like the conductor of some crazed symphony, clearly reverting to tried-and-true methods as snow and ice rose in response, tripping their foes even if it couldn't always block their way entirely.

It was all too chaotic to get any accurate sense of just how many enemies they were facing, beyond a vague and indistinct sense of "many." All the same, after a number of harrowing seconds, it finally seemed to Kristoff like they'd managed to thread the gauntlet. The last assailant flung a throwing knife at them in desperation, which buried itself up to its haft in the top of the crate directly behind his shoulder blades. He turned to gawp at it, his eyes open wide at the near miss. Then he looked at Elsa. "Well," he said weakly, "that was close."

"Kristoff!" she shouted.

His head snapped around to find that they were careening around a curve. And there, hidden behind the bulk of the hill and poised directly in the middle of the road, stood a stocky figure. A crossbow was pressed tightly against one shoulder, an eye sighted down its length, and the arrowhead was aimed directly at...

"Sven!"

The next few moments were a literal blur. The sled, already moving so fast around the turn that it was threatening to lift up onto one runner, overbalanced completely as Sven hauled to one side in an attempt to avoid this latest obstacle. Both Kristoff and Elsa were sent flying, launched out of their seats and into the air. They hit the snow hard, then rolled over and over, pursued by the sound of the crashing sleigh.

A cry of pain escaped Kristoff as he was finally brought to a hard stop, his left side slamming into a rock that jutted out of the snow. He groaned, trying to guess from the pain exactly how bad his injury might be. The last thing he wanted to do was move, but he knew he didn't dare lie still. He rolled over onto his belly, his next moan muffled by the snow into which his face was buried. Pushing himself up to his hands and knees, he had to pause for a moment as the spinning of the world threatened to dump him onto his side again. It took a great effort to keep himself from shaking his head in an attempt to clear it. He suspected if he did, it would only result in his becoming violently sick.

Instead, he began to crawl, keeping his head down while his equilibrium fought to reassert itself. "Sven!" he called out hoarsely. "Elsa! Sven!"

A series of honking grunts reached him. It was difficult to determine from which direction they came, since up was still a matter of some debate just then. The good news was that, while Sven sounded understandably distressed, there were none of the shrill notes that would have meant serious pain or injury. With luck, he was merely tangled up with the sled and unable to free himself.

"It's okay, Sven!" he called back reassuringly. "I'm here. I'm alright." Well, relatively speaking. "Just stay calm. I'll be there in a minute, okay? I just need to find Elsa first. Elsa?"

He risked slowly raising his head, fought to keep down the bile that rose in the back of his throat at even that simple change of orientation. Fortunately, it was enough. He saw her off to his left. She was lying on her back, her head lolling to one side so that her face was turned away from him. But the urge to wretch nearly overcame him when he saw that the crown of her skull was pressed against a fallen log. How hard? How hard had she hit?

As quickly as he could, he dragged himself over to her. Relief flooded through him upon seeing that her chest still rose and fell, and he almost sobbed with relief when he saw that her eyes were open, even though they appeared to be having trouble focusing. "Elsa," he gasped. When she began to turn to look at him, he shook his head and immediately regretted it as the hillside seemed to pitch beneath him. "No," he ground out through clenched teeth. "Just lie still. Don't move. I think you might have hit your head."

"Sven?" she asked. That she'd been too dazed to register his earlier shouts wasn't a good sign, but he tried not to dwell on that.

"He's okay, I think. I'll see to him next. But first, I need to find out how badly you're hurt."

A shadow fell across them both. Kristoff slowly looked up and found the stout figure from earlier standing above them. It wore several layers of coat, including a fur-lined hood that was pulled up around its face. Nose and mouth were hidden behind a thick woolen scarf. The crossbow in its hands was pointed directly at Kristoff's face. The cloth covering its mouth muffled a gruff voice as it spoke.

"Your reindeer isn't hurt. Course, his condition could change. So could yours, for that matter, if you give me any trouble."

"My friend, she's injured," Kristoff said, any idea of creating more trouble far from his mind at that moment. "I think she hit her head on the log. Is there anyone among you who could help her?"

Black, beady eyes narrowed as they peered out through the gap between hood and scarf. "Is she awake?"

"Yes, though she seems groggy. I'm not sure what to do, but I'm worried that..."

With one swift and startling motion, the crossbow spun around. The butt of the stock dropped and smacked into Elsa's temple. What little energy she'd had evaporated, her entire body going limp.

Kristoff jumped to his feet, ready to retaliate despite his condition, but strong hands grabbed him from behind and drew his arms painfully behind his back. Two of the burliest robbers held him as he struggled feebly. "Why would you do that?" he raged. "She was stunned. She wasn't going to hurt anybody!"

"I saw what she was doing during the ambush. All that hand waving and stuff. Then the snow coming to life and tripping my people. Magic, that was. Who knows what she might still have been able to do, even in the state she was in?"

"It still isn't right," he protested as he continued to strain against his captors. "That's no way to treat a woman!"

That was when the figure began to laugh

"Sonny," it said, head shaking, "a lifetime of experience has taught me never to underestimate women."

One hand reached up and pulled the scarf down off its face. Kristoff stopped struggling as he stared open-mouthed at the leader of this band of ruffians.

"Though if it'd make you feel better, I could always knock you out too," the old lady said with a smirk.


	22. The Old Robber Woman

"Why'd ya have to go screaming like that for anyway, huh? What part of, 'take 'em by surprise,' did ya not understand?"

"Oh, I don't know. They looked plenty surprised to me."

"I'm gettin' real tired of your sniggering, Cort, so why don't you just shove it! Besides, no one was talking to you. I was asking this lunkhead here a question."

"I ain't no lunkhead."

"Well, you coulda fooled me."

"It was an ambush, wuzzin it? What good's an ambush if ya don't attack?"

"We were going to attack! I had 'em in my sights, didn't I? Another second or two and I'd've taken the big one down. Then we would've had easy pickings."

"Easy pickings? Ha! Tell that to my frozen fingers."

"Cort, are you ever gonna stop whining about that? Wasn't like you even got frostbit or nothing. Only took a bit of warm water, and now ya can't even tell."

"Yeah, well you try having your hand covered in ice for half an hour, why doncha! See how long it takes you to get over it."

"Our job," interrupted Lunkhead, his slow voice suggesting it had taken him that long to process the last statement that had been directed at him, "was to make sure dey didn't escape back up da road. Well, if dey's running down the road, then dey's not turning back. So I done good job following orders."

"A good job? Blazes! Sometimes, I swear you couldn't follow orders if they was to drag you around on a leash!"

"You callin' me a dog?"

"Course not. Dogs can learn to stay when they're told!"

"Oh." Lunkhead sounded disappointed. "I thought you was being nice. I like dogs."

Kristoff would have been sorely tempted to stick his fingers in his ears just to block out the incessant bickering of the three thugs walking along behind him. Unfortunately, he didn't have that option. His hands were tied together behind his back. This made keeping his balance in the fading light rather difficult but all the more important, because he wouldn't be able to catch himself if he tripped and fell. Even so, his situation was still better than Elsa's.

The robbers had righted the sled, and Sven was being forced to drag it along some way ahead. It pained Kristoff every time he looked at it. The metal brackets that should have bolted the seat to the right sideboard had been torn free so that the bench now bounced around with every little bump in the road. A large crack ran clear through the dash panel, and the tailgate had been sheered off completely. By some miracle, the runners had survived largely intact, though a couple of their support braces looked a little worse for wear. If not for that, the thieves might well have just abandoned it at the scene of the attack.

Instead, they had decided it would be much easier to load their spoils into the sleigh than to lug it all on their own backs. They had gathered up all of the spilled cargo they'd deemed salvageable, shoving as much of it as would fit into the front of the sled. The rest was stowed in back, squeezed around the still unconscious Elsa.

He supposed he ought to be grateful that they'd demonstrated even that modicum of courtesy, considering how deeply they appeared to distrust Elsa and her magic. As with Kristoff, they had bound her hands behind her, but they'd done a much more thorough job with her ropes. They'd also tied her ankles together, then gagged and blindfolded her with strips of none-too-clean cloth. It seemed that, despite having seen Elsa's hand waving during their attack, they weren't entirely convinced that was the only way she could work her magic, so they simply attempted to restrict her in every way they could manage.

Kristoff hadn't seen Elsa stir since the old woman had knocked her out, even though he'd been doing his best to watch for any sign of movement. He couldn't decide whether he ought to be thankful for that or not. Some sign of wakefulness from her would have been comforting, but he worried that the robbers might simply take more determined measures to keep her under control. He didn't want to see see her suffer three blows to the head in one day.

"Why we taking dem back wit' us, anyway?" Lunkhead asked from behind him. "We coulda just left dem dere and taken dere stuff."

"Cause the chief said so, that's why," said the most argumentative one. Although he clearly wasn't the leader of this band, he still liked bossing the others around, so Kristoff had taken to thinking of him as Sarge. "If you think you've got a better idea, maybe you want to take it up with her?"

"I don't think she'd like dat very much. The last time I done dat, my ear hurt for two days."

"Oh, so that's what it takes to get you to pay attention and follow orders? Maybe I'll box your ears myself the next time we're prepping an ambush."

"She din't use no box. She done it with her bare hands."

"Seriously, man, how do you even manage to dress yourself every morning?"

"Don't," Lunkhead replied. "Been wearing dese same clothes for… um… one, two, t'ree… five weeks now." The third man, Cort, sniggered again. Kristoff fervently hoped that the rest of these robbers weren't much brighter than Lunkhead. That would certainly make escaping from them a whole lot easier.

Night had fallen fully and they were making their way by torchlight by the time their little procession finally came to a halt. Shouted orders came back from the head of the pack, and the bandits quickly set to unloading the sacks and crates from the sled. They marched off one by one, their arms full of plunder. Even Sven was led away until eventually, only Kristoff, Elsa, and their three guards remained.

The stout old woman walked back to them, torch held high in one hand. She leaned over the side of the sled and prodded Elsa, grunting in apparent satisfaction when her prisoner didn't respond. Turning, she jabbed a finger over Kristoff's shoulder then pointed at Elsa. "Klaus, you take her. And be careful. If she so much as twitches, you do whatever it takes to restrain her, but try not to hurt her too much if you can help it. Understood?"

"Uh huh," Lunkhead/Klaus replied in his slow, deep voice. "Er, I mean… Yes, Chief." The big man, one of the two who had held Kristoff back after Elsa had been knocked out, ambled forward. With surprising gentleness, he lifted Elsa into his arms, where he cradled her securely against his chest.

"You two, keep an eye on the other one," their leader said while indicating Kristoff. "If he gives you any trouble..." She shrugged dismissively, making it plain that, as far as she was concerned, they could do to him whatever might strike their fancy. Kristoff silently decided not to give them any reason to indulge their whims just yet. Besides, they would all have a better chance of escaping if they were able to stay together, particularly once Elsa was awake again.

As they began to file past his beloved sled, Kristoff looked at it sorrowfully. Anna had given it to him at the same time she'd also given him their first kiss. That had been the moment when it had become clear to both of them that, though their first adventure might have been over, the new adventure that was their relationship had only just begun. So now, he had to force himself not to think of the current state of the sled as a bad omen for… well, for everything else.

All the same, it was difficult to remain optimistic while facing this latest predicament. Even if he and Elsa and Sven were all somehow able to free themselves, they would then have to face the rest of their journey in a half-broken sledge – or none at all, if they were forced to leave it behind. And if that wasn't bad enough, they'd also be without the remainder of their provisions. This wasn't just a day trip to the North Mountain, either. They would need to find food if nothing else, and that wouldn't be easy in this wilderness in the middle of winter. Things were definitely taking a terrible turn for the worse.

Despite its state of disrepair, he hated to be parted from the sled. He tried to keep watching it over his shoulder, but the tip of Cort's knife persuaded him otherwise. Even without that coaxing, he wouldn't have been able to indulge in such a distraction for long, as it soon became clear why they had abandoned the sled where they did.

The hill to their right fell away suddenly, so that they were now treading along a narrow path overlooking a steep gorge. In the darkness, Kristoff had no way to tell how deep it might be, nor was he particularly keen to find out the hard way. So instead, he kept his eyes fixed on the stony ground in front of his feet, trying to pick his way along by the light of the old woman's torch. This became all the more difficult as the path began to descend, sometimes quite steeply. It was clear that their captors knew the route well, and he was hard-pressed to keep up with the bobbing light ahead of them. Still, the occasional grumbled threat from behind managed to provide adequate incentive to maintain his pace, despite one or two slips that nearly made his heart give out.

At last, the torch stopped moving. Kristoff slowed, expecting that Klaus's bulk in front of him would soon be stopping too. Instead, the big man merely took a few steps to one side before disappearing from sight. A shove in the back caused Kristoff to stumble forward. He regained his balance and came to a halt right in front of the old woman, who jerked her head sideways. Turning, he saw a narrow opening in the rocky wall to his left. He quickly ducked down and squeezed through before his guards could decide that he needed any additional encouragement.

The rough entryway wasn't much longer than it was wide, and it soon opened out into a large cavern. The torches that had guided them through the darkness had now been placed in crudely fashioned brackets mounted upon the cave walls, illuminating not just the twenty or so human denizens but what must have been at least three times as many birds perched on laths scattered about the space. Kristoff thought they mostly looked like pigeons, but his eyes were soon drawn away from them by the actions of the people milling about. They'd begun to stow away the stolen foodstuffs and other small items they had hauled all this way. Two of them were engaged in a squabble over Kristoff's pickaxe. He'd half a mind to tell them to leave it alone or he'd see that they both got a piece of it, but such thoughts were interrupted when the last three robbers slipped in behind him.

"Get outta the way and let us in, ya stupid lump," growled Sarge. "Whaddaya want us to do with these two now, Chief?"

The old woman was the last to enter. Handing her torch to Cort, she gestured toward the back of the cave. "Take 'em to my office. I'll be wanting to have a little chat with them once I get everything else settled around here."

"You heard her. Get movin'."

The chief's office turned out to be nothing more than a natural hollow in the farthest corner of the cavern, nearly deep enough to be a chamber all its own. Here, it became clear that her position within the gang did offer a few choice amenities. Whereas piles of straw or reeds appeared to suffice as bedding for nearly everyone else, a well-worn mattress had been crammed into her private space. Wisps of cotton poked out of a few holes here and there. Beside it stood a small wooden trunk, banded with metal and secured with a tarnished yet sturdy-looking padlock. The only other bit of furniture was an old wooden chair whose seat cushion had been patched so many times, it more closely resembled a very small and overstuffed quilt.

But the most unusual item on display was a painting that had been rather inexpertly hung upon the rock wall at the back of the alcove. At first, the unusually straight lines of its frame were all that revealed its presence to Kristoff. Once Cort dropped his torch into a nearby bracket, though, the canvas itself became visible. A shaggy dog stared back at him, its pink tongue hanging out of its mouth. The mutt looked inexplicably happy to have taken up residence in these shabby surroundings.

Klaus laid Elsa down upon the mattress. "I tink she'll be comfy dere," he said as he straightened.

"Yeah," Cort jeered, "until she wakes up."

Kristoff began to lower himself onto the chair, but Sarge grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back. "That there's the chief's chair," he said. "You wanna sit, find yerself a bit of floor. Or you can stand, if ya wanna be stubborn. But ya might as well make yerself comfortable. You ain't goin' nowhere 'til Chief says so."

Stubbornness had never been a great motivator for Kristoff. Nor did he particularly care about ignoring Sarge's suggestion just to show that he could. He realized, however, that, with his arms still tied behind his back, he'd have to slide down the wall if he wanted to sit on the floor. The result would be uncomfortable since he also wouldn't be able to lean back properly, and standing again would be difficult at best. So it was that, when the robbers' leader arrived, she found him still on his feet, silently staring at the other three men.

"Alright, boys," she said. "I'll take over now. You can go see if we nabbed anything you like. Just try not to break anything else when you start fighting over it."

The three men left without a word of question, which spoke volumes regarding their opinion of the old woman. None of them even hinted that perhaps they ought to stay to keep an eye on the prisoners. Clearly, their chief had a reputation for being able to take care of herself. She now eyed Kristoff critically, sizing him up as she shrugged out of her coats.

"The deer and sled yours?" she asked, tossing her outer garments onto the wooden chest. He nodded, and she replied with a self-satisfied grunt. "Figured as much. Didn't seem likely a woman with clothes like those would be big on the outdoor life." She indicated Elsa with a small gesture.

"Where's Sven?"

"Who? Oh, the reindeer. Don't worry, he's fine. But I'm sure that handsome little head of yours is already hard at work trying to find a way out of this little mess. And I couldn't help but notice the way you were shouting for your hairy friend after the accident. Didn't figure you'd be particularly eager to leave without him, so I had a couple of my lads find him other lodgings. It's a right warren of caves around these parts. A man who didn't know them as well as my lot could get lost real easy. Might never find what he was looking for. Might never find his way out again. And even if he did… Well, it's a long, cold way from here to anywhere interesting, especially on foot.

"Just something to think about while you're working on that escape plan of yours."

Kristoff must have allowed more of his unease to show than he'd intended, based on the smug expression that came to the woman's face. Pushing past, she plopped down onto the chair, stretched out her legs, folded her hands across her plump belly, and turned her consideration to Elsa.

"Now, what's a simple man like yourself doing ferrying around an obviously wellborn woman like her?"

Kristoff didn't answer. He couldn't see how doing so could possibly improve their situation. He might have considered making some sassy, flippant remark just to show that he wasn't letting himself be intimidated into silence. Unfortunately, his mind seemed to have run out of them just then. So instead, he asked a question of his own.

"What do you want with us?"

"You? Not much. Her, though? Well now, we might have a few possibilities there. That's a woman with some style, that is. And based on those fancy clothes of hers, I'd say she's also a woman with some money. Now I generally don't get into the whole ransom business, as a rule. Too messy. Too many people involved. Too much that can go wrong. Besides, there's not many 'round here worth enough coin to bother with. But when someone like her just falls into my lap… Well, I haven't survived this long by walking away from the table just when I happen to get dealt a lucky hand."

"And just how do you expect to get paid?" Kristoff asked. "You already took everything we had from the sled, so we have nothing more we can give you. You know we aren't from around here, which means we couldn't easily get you more money even if we wanted to. But you don't seem to know who we are, which means you also have no idea who you should send your demands to. Seems to me like you haven't thought through this plan of yours all that carefully."

In the back of his mind, he realized he was almost certainly talking too much. It was the only thing he could think to do. If he could just stall long enough for Elsa to regain consciousness, then she ought to be able to use her magic to free them all and hold off the bandits while they made their escape. Granted, they were badly outnumbered. And besides Elsa's ice powers, they had no other weapons. And he had no idea where Sven might be. All things considered, he had little right to criticize the old woman's plan, so he rather hoped that continuing to stall might also give him time to think of a better one.

"That's where you come in, sonny."

"Me? You said you didn't want anything from me. Which is good, because I'm not about to give you anything either."

"Don't need anything from you," she said as airily has her throaty voice could manage. "Just need you." She bent forward and, from within her boot, drew forth a well-whetted knife. Unlike most of the dingy items that Kristoff had seen about the robber's hideout, this blade gleamed, reflecting the yellow torchlight so that it seemed to glow like polished gold. The woman handled it with casual confidence. She didn't spin or twirl it in a showy attempt to impress. Yet the way she held it suggested that she knew just about everything one could do with such a knife, and had done all of them more often than Kristoff cared to think.

"See, I also overheard our pretty little missus there asking after the reindeer when you first found her. Asked after him by name, as I recall. That says to me that she knows the two of you well enough to care 'bout what happens to you. So I don't need you to tell me anything. But after seeing what she did to that useless fool Cort, I'll not be risking my fingers anywhere near her. Won't be needing to, neither. Once she opens her eyes, I'll just be needing your neck to tickle with my knife. I'm figuring that might be enough to loosen her tongue. Should make her think twice, too, about trying to use that magic of hers. If I see even the tiniest hint of frost, then it's..."

The blade flashed, finishing the sentence for her.

Kristoff's mind was racing. Or it was trying to, but it was having problems getting up to speed since it kept slamming into dead ends no matter which way it turned. He considered trying to overpower the woman and wresting the knife from her hand. That seemed hopeless, though, what with his hands still tied and a cavern full of her cronies ready to swarm in at the first sounds of any trouble. Those same cronies would stop him if he tried to run for help. Not that he'd be willing to leave Elsa and Sven behind anyway. Besides, he didn't have the slightest clue where he'd look for help if he managed to fight his way free. Every plan he could think of that had even the slightest chance of working needed Elsa awake and free to use her powers.

Almost as if in response to that thought, a groan issued from the vicinity of the battered mattress. Kristoff turned to look in Elsa's direction.

He felt a fist grab hold of the long hairs that hung down below his collar, then yank painfully downward. He got the message after a second, sharper tug caused a number of strands to part company from his scalp. Clumsily, since he still couldn't use his hands to help balance, he managed to get down onto his knees. Then he became absolutely rigid as he felt a razor's edge of steel press against his Adam's apple.

The chief robber had moved with a speed that was quite surprising given her age and weight. She now stood behind him and, though he couldn't see her face, he had no doubt she was staring over the top of his head at the slender body that was finally beginning to stir.

They both watched as Elsa's forehead, previously smooth in her slumber, now creased. She drew a sharp breath in through her nose as her face contracted in pain. She squirmed, apparently trying to move her arms to help her sit up, but the tight ropes thwarted her attempts. She struggled more and more frantically, until her befogged brain at last began to clear and take stock of her situation. Then she grew still.

"Eret!" the old woman shouted. "Get in here!" Elsa's head lifted off the mattress at the sound of the call, but from the way the color drained from her face, Kristoff suspected she quickly regretted the movement.

The man that Kristoff had labeled Sarge hurried back in, but he wasn't given the chance to get a single word out. "Our guest is awake," the chief said. "She and I are going to have a bit of a talk, but first, I need her to understand her situation. Remove her blindfold."

Clearly, here was the one person Eret was used to obeying rather than ordering about, because he automatically took a step toward Elsa before he'd even thought about it. Then he stopped and slowly looked down at his hand. He looked up at Elsa, then back at his boss.

With a growl of irritation, the woman tightened her grip on Kristoff's hair and spoke across the room in a raised voice. "You there, girl! We know what you can do, right? So you ought to know what I can do, too. See, I've got your boyfriend here. Also got a knife. If you don't want the two of them to become better acquainted, then you'd better not try any of your magical funny business. You understand?"

Elsa's eyebrows had shot up at these words. While she hesitated, Kristoff tried not to swallow for fear of the blade at his throat. Finally, Elsa nodded.

"Happy, Eret? Now do as you're told, unless you want to get to know my knife better, too."

Uncertainty continued to roll off the scruffy-looking man in waves. Even so, he began to advance slowly, reaching out one hand as though he was approaching a wild cat that was hissing and spitting angrily, not a bound and dazed slip of a woman. When he at last grabbed the knot at the back of her head, he pulled the blindfold roughly off, mostly through the simple expedient of jumping a meter or so backwards.

Elsa blinked rapidly and her eyes seemed to take longer than usual to focus, but when they finally found Kristoff, they grew wide in alarm. He thought she might have tried to call out his name, but the gag in her mouth made it difficult to be sure. She made a valiant attempt to twist herself into a sitting position, but the ropes thwarted her. She was reduced to glowering impotently over Kristoff's head at the woman behind him.

"Now, I was just saying before you woke up," the old woman said almost pleasantly, "you look like the sort of fine lady who ought to be worth a good little something to someone. For the moment, I'm figuring that they'll pay more to get you back unharmed. Make my life difficult, and I might just accept whatever fee I can get for damaged goods. Either way, all I need to know from you is whose purse will be paying for your return, safely or otherwise."

Elsa's cold glare grew even sharper. Despite all warnings to the contrary, Kristoff kept expecting to see frost crystallizing upon the walls or to hear his captor yelp in a sudden exclamation of icy pain. She seemed to be having similar thoughts, because another yank on his hair pulled his head further back, exposing his neck. He felt the blade as it made the tiniest bite into his throat.

"Now now, dearie. Let's not forget ourselves, hmm? I'm not as young as I used to be. Hands aren't as steady, you understand. Be a shame if they were to slip. That happens sometimes these days, especially if I get upset. So you might want to keep me happy and give me what I want. Just a name. We can start with yours, if you'd rather."

"Mmph muf mrmble."

"Tsk. Silly me. See what I mean about getting old? Eret, take her gag off, too."

As Elsa's eyes turned toward him, the weedy man halted his attempts to slowly edge back into the main cavern. He glanced past Kristoff with an expression that plainly said, "You really want me to risk my luck a second time, boss?"

"If you're still worried about your poor fingers," the woman's croaky voice said, "I can keep them safe for you. I'll cut 'em off and put 'em in my trunk if you don't bloody well do as you're told!"

Eret clearly did not consider this an idle threat. An instant later and his fingers were fighting for their very lives, fumbling at the knotted fabric that filled Elsa's mouth. When he at last retreated, his forehead was sweating in spite of the cold winter air that circulated through the drafty caves. Completely ignoring the man's agitation, the chief returned to her earlier conversation.

"Now, you were saying…?" she prompted.

"My name is Elsa, of Arendelle."

"Arendelle? No idea where that is. You, Eret?"

The man shrugged then shook his head, even as he dabbed at his face with what had, a moment ago, been Elsa's gag. It couldn't have been more obvious that, despite his earlier bravado when among his comrades, he was deeply uncomfortable around Elsa now that she was conscious again. Her displays of magic must have unnerved him greatly, and he kept trying to surreptitiously increase the distance between them whenever his boss wasn't looking.

"I think there's an Olderdalen out west somewhere. That what you mean?"

"I meant Arendelle," Elsa replied bluntly. "And unless you want more trouble than you could possible handle, I suggest you set me and my friends free immediately."

"Well, well. Listen to you!" The robber chief sounded like she was praising an overly precocious grandchild. "Think because you've got a bit of magic in you that you can scare me, do you? Too bad for you that I'm not so easily impressed. I've seen your like before, off and on ever since I was a little lass. Other fools 'round here might wet themselves when they see a bit of hocus pocus." Off to the side, Eret stiffened at the not-so-subtle jibe. "But are you so sure that your ice is faster than a twitch of my knife?

"Or maybe this fellow here just doesn't mean that much to you, hmm? Now if that's the case, then he's not much good to me either, and I might as well just..." Kristoff gasped despite himself as the blade bit deeper still.

"No!" Elsa shouted. "Please. Arendelle isn't anywhere near here. It's far to the south. We've been traveling for weeks and weeks, chasing after someone. And it sounds like… like you might know her?"

"Oh? Now what makes you say that?"

"You said you've seen others like me before. I'm guessing you've only seen one other, and she's the one we're after. Please tell me, have you seen her recently? Has she passed through here? She'd also have been traveling by sleigh, only hers would have been pulled by…"

"Yes, I know. Two white bears."

"Then you have seen her! Only she wouldn't have been alone. There would have been another young woman with her – my sister, Anna. And a little snowman as well. Can you tell me, did they both look okay?"

"I've seen this woman and her sled before," the old woman admitted gruffly, "but the last time was a few years ago. It's rare to ever catch sight of her on her travels, and most folks have learned to keep their distance if they do. But we're getting a might off topic here, I think. This Arendelle… Prosperous, is it? Lot of wealthy types? I'm guessing your family is quite well-to-do. How much would your husband pay to get you back, hmm? Or your dear parents?"

"My parents are dead."

"Fine, husband it is then. And don't expect me to believe it's this bumpkin I've got here."

"I'm not married."

"Really? A pretty young thing like you? Hmph. Men in Arendelle must be dumber than most. Ah, well. That sled you were riding in couldn't have been cheap, so there's got to be money somewhere back there with your name on it. A handsome inheritance perhaps. I'm sure we'll find someone who'll take delivery of a ransom letter, won't we?"

"If it's money you want, I can arrange that. Just please, I beg you, let us go. We need to catch up to the Snow Queen. I have to save my sister!"

The old woman chuckled. "I've never had much luck getting a corpse to carry through on its promises. You chase after that madwoman and that's exactly what you'll be. And I still say you're worth too much. No sense letting you run off just to get yourself killed, least not until I've gotten whatever I can get for you. Think we've got some old maps of the south around here somewhere. I'll just have to dig them up and see about sending a little message down to this Arendelle of yours. Of course, you'll be staying with us in the meantime.

"There's a little chamber way back in the tunnels that we used to use for a storeroom once. Even managed to mount a half-decent door on it. Good for hiding things from snoops. Seems like it might make a right perfect bedchamber for the two of you.

"And in case you get any ideas about using your magic to escape, let me make a thing or two clear. The reason we used to keep our best stuff back there was 'cause there are so many twists and turns along the way to it, nobody who didn't know where they were going would ever find their way in or out again. Problem was, some of my lads aren't exactly the brightest ever born. Kept getting lost whenever I'd send them to fetch something, so I finally gave up on it. More trouble than it was worth. But for you, I think I can put up with a bit of hassle, at least for a while.

"Eret, go get Klaus. I still don't trust our pretty little Miss here, not enough to be untying her any more than we already have. He can carry her again. Best grab a couple more lads while you're at it. Preferably a few with brains, or at least a decent sense of direction. I'll lead the way, but I think we ought to leave guards on watch, just in case these two do manage to get out and decide to take their chances in the tunnels. Somebody should be there to change their minds. We wouldn't want our payday running off and falling down a bottomless pit on us, now would we?"

Eret, looking relieved to have finally been given an excuse, hurried out of the alcove. Elsa finally lowered her eyes from the old woman's face to gaze again at Kristoff. It would have been difficult to say which of them looked more worried.

• • •

The door to their makeshift prison cell swung shut, and there was a rasping noise as Klaus slid a heavy wooden crossbar through the metal brackets on its far side. The little bit of torchlight that flickered around the edges of the ill-fitting door faded as their escorts departed and their guards took up their stations a little ways away. What miniscule illumination remained barely made a dent in the otherwise pitch blackness. The chamber stank of damp earth and mold, and there were soft and disturbingly squishy patches here and there on the floor that Kristoff decided he was probably happier not to be able to see.

Their captors hadn't removed any of the ropes binding them, but they hadn't added any either. That left Kristoff's legs free, though his arms were still pinned behind his back. Elsa was still tied both hand and foot. Not that such things would be a problem for long, Kristoff told himself.

"Elsa," he whispered, hoping that the echoing tunnels wouldn't carry his words to the men still outside. "Elsa, now's our chance. I know you probably didn't want to try to take on the whole gang at once, but there are only two guards outside now. All you need to do is use your magic on these ropes. Get a bit of ice inside them and they won't be able to take the strain. They'll fray in no time. Then you can knock out the door. That should surprise the guards enough to give us an opening. I can take one if you can get the other. After that, I'm pretty sure I can get us out of here. Sven and I both got pretty good at keeping our bearings in the dark. Now finding Sven, that could be tricky, but I'm sure we'll figure something out. We just have to..."

"I can't."

The choked words were almost a sob. Kristoff felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. In the darkness, he couldn't see Elsa, but he moved closer toward where he thought he'd last glimpsed her before the torchlight had disappeared. "Sure you can," he said in a comforting murmur. "I saw the hole you made in the dungeon wall where Hans had you locked up. This old door should be nothing compared to that. Don't worry about trying your new magical technique now. There'll be time enough for that once we get out of here. Right now, all we need to worry about is…"

"Kristoff, I can't! I can't… can't feel my magic."

That brought him up short. "What?" he asked stupidly.

"Ever since I woke up, I've been trying. I've been reaching for where it usually is, but I can't find it. I don't understand what's happening unless… unless something went wrong when I hit my head, or when that old woman hit me, or… I just… I don't..."

Kristoff felt the look of shock form on his own face, and was immediately grateful that Elsa wasn't able to see it. He allowed himself a second or two of panic, then shook himself out of it. Now wasn't the time to lose their heads. They needed to keep their wits about them if they had any hope of getting out of this. They both needed to calm down. They just needed to come up with another plan.

"That's… that's okay, Elsa," he began awkwardly. "I mean, I'm sure it's only temporary, right? Your powers will come back soon enough, you'll see. In the meantime, we'll just have to think of some other way out of here. These ropes are tough, but they're pretty old. Maybe we can find something left behind in here that we can use to cut them. Or maybe one of us can untie the other. And that door… Well, this isn't exactly a proper dungeon, is it? Look, there's a huge gap at the bottom. You can still see some of the light from outside, right? I think they just bolted some old carriage door to the wall or something. Maybe we can figure out some other way to knock it off its hinges. And then..."

"Kristoff," Elsa said again, and her voice was even closer to tears than it had been before. "Kristoff, you don't understand. It's not just that I can't do my magic. I can't even feel it. Any of it."

The implications of Elsa's words fought to make themselves felt inside Kristoff's brain, even as he did his utmost to deny them. But the chill that ran down his spine when she next spoke was like the shock wave that accompanied their tremendous impact as they crashed down upon his soul.

"I can't feel Olaf. I don't have any idea where he is. Even if we manage to escape, it might not make any difference.

"We've lost them, Kristoff. I've lost them. I've lost Anna."


	23. Darkness Beneath the Light

Anna was lost in a strange, though pleasantly amusing, dream. It had started with Olaf and Sven talking, and though Sven still spoke with Kristoff's voice, she was sure the reindeer was actually speaking for himself. His lips were moving and everything! He'd been trying to persuade Olaf to let him take a bite out of his nose. Naturally, Olaf had protested. He'd said there were plenty of unused carrots in the kitchen that Sven could eat instead. Sven had replied that he would gladly eat those, but that Gerda had banned him from the kitchens after the mess he'd made the last time he'd gone down there for a snack. The debate had gone back and forth for a while until Sven finally grew tired and decided to take matters into his own hands… er, hooves. Well, more accurately, teeth.

Anna had snatched Olaf's head away in the nick of time so that the reindeer's mouth snapped shut on thin air. She'd been just about ready to scold Sven for trying to eat part of the snowman when something cold and wet had smacked into the back of her head. Turning around to see who had thrown the snowball, she'd then received another one square in the face. And so, acting without thinking, she'd flung Olaf's head straight in Elsa's direction. The rest of his body had gone toddling off in blind pursuit. Realizing with chagrin what she'd just done, she turned back to upbraid the reindeer, as if her mistake was somehow his fault. But instead of Sven, Kristoff was now standing there. Two twigs (which bore a suspicious resemblance to Olaf's arms) were sticking up out of his hair like antlers. As she stared at him and fought to suppress her laughter, he took a large bite out of a carrot he held in his hand and looked at her quizzically.

"What? What's the matter? Do I have something on my face? Well, what is it, Anna? Hey, Anna?"

This was made even stranger because, though he was munching with gusto on the carrot, Kristoff's lips themselves weren't actually moving. Nor was it his voice doing the talking. Instead, Anna could have sworn it was Olaf she heard calling her name.

"Anna. Psst, Anna! Wake up. Wake up, wake up!"

Anna slowly opened her eyes, reluctant to leave the simple pleasures of her slumber to return to the Snow Queen's sled. She was lying, curled up on her side, in the back of the vehicle. Olaf was sitting on top of her, his stubby little legs straddling her shoulder. He was bouncing up and down slightly and gently poking her cheek in his efforts to rouse her. She yawned and, her eyelids already begin to droop again, mumbled, "What is it, Olaf? I was having such a nice d-d-dream."

"Oh," Olaf said, his voice hitting a note somewhere between apologetic and disappointed. "I'm sorry. I just… I thought you would want to see."

"See what?" Maybe if she fell back to sleep quickly enough, she'd still have a chance to see Sven holding the reins while Kristoff pulled them all around the courtyard. Now that would be something.

"You know," he said as he slid down her arm to land on the deck beside her. "The sky's awake."

"Sky… s'wake." Rolling onto her back, Anna heaved a deep, sleepy sigh. Some part of her mind that was still on this side of wakefulness had at least registered that first word, and it now decided that it probably couldn't hurt to at least let the eyes take one quick peek at this sky thing. And so, Anna's eyelids cracked open just the tiniest little bit.

There should have been the sound of a whip crack for as quickly as they opened the rest of the way.

"The sky's awake!"

Those three words seemed woefully inadequate to describe the sight that painted the heavens above her. These weren't the spindly ribbons she was used to seeing out of the palace windows back home. The aurora was a blazing ocean of light, stretching almost from one horizon to the other. Ripples of brilliant green pulsed like waves churning upon that mighty sea. Angry red foam rode their crests, appearing all along their length only to then fade as if submerged beneath the breakers. Slow yet powerful tides ebbed and flowed, twisting and pulling the currents this way and that. Along the boundaries, colors bled, giving rise to peculiar shades of purple and blue that Anna half thought existed only in her own imagination. The light was so powerful, it nearly overwhelmed all but the brightest of stars.

"Woah." Anna sat up, all thoughts of sleep instantly driven from her mind. For a time, she simply stared at the sky, transfixed by the shifting swirls of color. She almost felt like a child again, back when the world was new, exciting, and beautiful, and every morning had hinted at the possibility of something totally amazing that she'd never seen before. In those days, few things had been cause for greater wonder in her life than the unpredictable visits of the aurora. To her young mind, they had always seemed like some sort of signal or sign that something remarkable was about to happen. That was why she had never been able to sleep on those nights when the lights danced outside. She couldn't stand the thought of missing whatever magical mischief they might have brought with them.

"Ooh, Anna! You've got to see this!"

She tore her gaze away from the sky to look for Olaf. It took her a moment, because he wasn't where she'd left him. Instead, he had hopped up onto a container beside her and was peering over the back of the driver's bench at something ahead of them. Anna turned, curling her legs beneath her as she did so, and pushed herself up into a kneeling position so that she could see whatever it was that had excited Olaf so very much.

"The earth's awake, too!" he said in an awestruck voice. And though it wasn't actually earth, strictly speaking, Anna could hardly fault the snowman his bit of license. Certainly not in the face of such a breathtaking spectacle.

The road they were currently traveling skirted the shores of a vast lake, not unlike countless others they had passed as they pushed further and further north. The water was broad and deep enough that the surface hadn't frozen, which meant that it now acted like a sprawling mirror. The colors in the sky were so perfectly reflected in the lake that, if not for the black line of mountains on the far shore, the two could have been as one.

This time, Anna had no words at all. After days and weeks spent in this wintry wilderness, where the snow and ice and pale sunlight had bleached the world to a palette of whites and grays, the triumphant arrival of these brilliant hues was almost enough to bring her to tears. Until that moment, she hadn't realized just how much she'd been missing color.

With an ease born from years of tree climbing and horseback riding while wearing a dress, Anna climbed over the seat back in order to get a better view of the twinned aurora. Olaf scrambled down beside her, then stood on the edge of the seat, leaning forward against the dash panel to get the best view he could manage. The Snow Queen glanced briefly at them both, then turned her eyes back to the road.

"Are the Northern Lights always this amazing this far… well, north?" Anna asked while continuing to drink in the view.

"They are generally more impressive here than they are in the south," the Snow Queen answered in a somewhat offhanded sort of way, "though I suppose tonight's display is rather exceptional, even for this latitude."

Anna let her attention drift, just for a moment, away from the sky and down to the face of the woman beside her. Something about the Snow Queen's tone had struck her as peculiar. It had almost seemed like she'd been making a particular effort to sound casual. Sure enough, Anna was certain she caught a wistful look upon the pale face. The greens and reds briefly reflected off another pair of upturned eyes before the Snow Queen realized she was being watched. She looked back at Anna, arching her eyebrows as though daring a comment.

Anna never had been one to pass up a good dare.

"Of course, I'm sure this is nothing special for you. You must get to see things like this all the time where you live. I'll admit, I'm a little jealous."

"Oh?"

"Oh, yeah. I've always loved the aurora, ever since I was little. Whenever it was in the sky, I was always too excited to sleep. It was as if a piece of the day had come back to visit in the middle of the night, and I just knew it had to have come for a reason. Like it had remembered something that it had forgotten to do earlier, you know? And if it went to all that trouble to come back, then it must have been something really important, so I didn't want to miss it, whatever it was."

The Snow Queen gave her a strange look. "You must have been a very odd child."

Anna shrugged. "My sister could make a snowdrift appear with a wave of her hand. Compared to that, I think my parents might have considered me to be the normal one. Well, normaler, at least. Er, more normal. Oh, you know what I mean. I suppose it's all relative, isn't it? Everybody's odd in one way or another. That's what makes it all so interesting."

"All what?"

"All… this!" Anna waved her hands in an all-encompassing gesture. "People. Life. The world. The aurora! If it wasn't for the odd and the unusual, what would we have to look forward to? It'd all be pretty boring if we never stumbled upon anything new or strange. Where would be the fun in life if everything was just… normal all the time? If nothing unexpected ever happened?"

She paused then, and though she continued to stare up at the sky, her thoughts somehow managed to stumble along paths of the past. "Believe me," she murmured, "Elsa and I tried it. For years. I wouldn't recommend it."

The Snow Queen seemed to consider this, and her eyes also rose once again. Olaf had turned to look back at the two women, which was just the slightest bit disconcerting since his head had swiveled completely around without his torso moving at all.

"Come to think of it," Anna spoke into the ensuing silence, "I suppose some of the most important nights of my life really did come when the sky was awake."

"Hey, yeah!" Olaf chimed in, eager to have something to contribute to the conversation again. "It was all lit up that night after we first visited the Ice Palace, remember? We'd just escaped Marshmallow and were on our way to visit Kristoff's family. You know, the love experts! I remember, because I pointed it out to Sven. And that was definitely an important night. That was when Elsa… When… Oh." His voice faltered, and he looked guiltily from Anna to the Snow Queen and back again.

"When Elsa did what?"

Anna sighed. It wouldn't have been her first choice to have Olaf bring that event up again, but it had already slipped out into their conversation once before. There didn't seem to be much point in trying to pretend otherwise, either. The Snow Queen never forgot a single word uttered in her presence, as far as Anna could tell, and she was more than clever enough to piece together such details even if Anna tried to hide them.

"That was when Elsa's magic froze my heart," Anna answered resignedly.

"Ah, I see."

"But that wasn't the only important time!" Anna hurried on, hoping to at least change the subject quickly enough that the Snow Queen wouldn't have a chance to begin plying her with questions about Elsa's unfortunate mishap. "There was this one night, when I was fifteen. I was supposed to be asleep in bed, but I snuck out of my room instead and climbed out onto the roof of the palace to watch the lights. I'm not sure I could've slept that night anyway, aurora or not. That was a big occasion too, you see. It was my cousin Rapunzel's wedding!

"Well, actually, I guess it must have been a couple nights after the wedding. But I remember just looking up and wondering if anyone there was seeing the same sky that I was. I… I think there was someone specific I had in mind at the time, but I can't seem to remember who it was for some reason. It was a silly thought anyway. Corona is much too far south to see the aurora like we do in Arendelle. I mean, I don't know exactly how far south you can go and still be able to see it. I suppose that, if you were traveling on a boat from Corona to Arendelle, there'd be a point somewhere along the way where you'd be able to watch the lights come up over the horizon like some sort of weird sunrise or something. That is, assuming the weather was good, of course."

She didn't know why, but for some reason, that thought made Anna indescribably sad.

"Ooh, and then there was the night that you woke Elsa up and convinced her to go down to the Grand Hall with you to play," Olaf added cheerily.

Anna looked at him in surprise. "How could you know the lights were out that night? Did Elsa tell you?"

Confusion flitted over Olaf's face. "Um, no. I mean, I don't think she did… exactly. I just… Well, I was there, wasn't I?"

"Uh, sort of," Anna conceded hesitantly. True, there had been a diminutive snowman named Olaf present in the Grand Hall that night, but it hadn't been this Olaf. Had it? But then, how had this Olaf known the peculiar turn of phrase that her younger self had always used to describe the aurora when it blazed across the night sky? She recalled an earlier discussion in which the Snow Queen had asked him exactly what memories he'd been born with. How much of what Elsa remembered about that night had managed to slip into the snowman's head?

"I don't see why playing with your sister should be considered a particularly special event." The Snow Queen's voice cut across Anna's thoughts like a splash of cold water. "From what you've said before, the two of you played together all the time. Unless… Ahh." A smile of enlightenment spread across the woman's features.

"Yes, of course. You told me yourself, didn't you? How the two of you stole down to the ballroom in the middle of the night. How you built a snowman together and named him Olaf. And how afterward, there was an… accident. An accident that drove your sister into seclusion and caused her to hide her powers from you for thirteen years.

"That was the night she erased your memories, wasn't it?"

Anna silently cursed the Snow Queen's all-too-perfect memory, though she was once again relieved that the woman had somehow managed to draw the wrong conclusions about what had happened on that fateful night. The next instant, however, she was wishing with all her heart that Olaf's memory was half as good as the Queen's. Apparently, he had completely forgotten the way Anna had silenced him the last time this topic had come up.

"Elsa didn't erase Anna's memories," he said before Anna could move to stop him. "Grand Pabbie did."

The Snow Queen's face, which until this point had been a picture of mild amusement bordering on condescension, suddenly turned hard and sharp as ice. "What? What do you mean? Who is Grand Pabbie?"

"You know," Olaf explained. He'd been distracted by the aurora again, so he remained completely oblivious to the sudden change in the Snow Queen's features. "Grand Pabbie! Leader of the stone trolls. Head of the clan that adopted Kristoff and Sven. Senior love expert. Anna's parents took her to see him after Elsa..."

"Wait, what?" Anna grabbed Olaf and tried to turn him to face her. Instead, she ended up twisting his head clean off, but by that point she was too agitated to worry about the potential rudeness of such behavior. She held his head in both of her hands and forced him to look her square in the eyes. "My parents couldn't have taken me anywhere that night. I never knew my parents. They both… They were both gone before I was even born."

"Oh! Um… Er..." Olaf stammered. A short distance away, two stick-fingered hands were busily wringing themselves together in a very Elsa-ish fashion.

Before Anna realized what was happening, Olaf's head had been ripped from her hands. Now, the Snow Queen brought it around so that he had no choice but to stare at her instead. "What do you mean, a stone troll erased her memories? That isn't possible. It can't be. It was Elsa, I'm sure of it. Elsa was the one responsible for making her sister forget all about her magic. She realized that the only way she would ever be safe was to completely hide her secret, and so she… It was her! It had to be!"

"Um… Er… Oh!" By this point, Olaf's fingers were tugging on each other in such dismay, they somehow managed to each pull the other arm loose. The two twigs fell to the floor of the sled with a quiet clatter.

The Snow Queen rounded on Anna. "Which is it?" she demanded, dropping Olaf's head carelessly into the back of the sled. "Who really erased your memories? It was your sister, wasn't it? It was Elsa. Tell me. Tell me the truth!"

There was a mania in those ice-blue eyes that Anna had never seen there before. Rage and terror seemed to struggle with each other in an effort to take foremost position in the Snow Queen's mind. She leaned toward Anna, the road ahead forgotten. The abandoned reins flapped loosely over the dash, threatening to slip out of reach at the first serious jolt.

"What… what difference does it make?" Anna asked as she drew back, trying to get as far away from the frantic woman as the confines of the sled would allow.

"Tell me!" the Snow Queen bellowed. "Tell me right now, or I will find out for myself!"

"What...? How…?"

A growl rumbled up from the Snow Queen's chest, so deep and feral that at first, Anna thought it had come from one of the bears. "Impertinent child," she spat. "I have no more patience to spare on you. I will have the truth, with or without your help."

Pale hands, tinged a sickly green by the swirling lights above their heads, reached for Anna's temples. She tried to squirm away, but there was nowhere left for her to go. She tried to lash out, to knock the Snow Queen back, only to find that her arms and legs had once again been pinioned to the seat by frozen restraints. She tried to shout, but by then, frigid fingertips were pressing tightly against her face. All she managed was a gasp, and then…

A tangled jumble of moving pictures flooded her brain. They seemed to jump back and forth, changing perspectives as though first viewed with one eye open, then the other. The scenes always remained the same... and yet, they weren't.

It was bright daylight and she was launching a wooden toboggan off a ramp of snow after having sledded down a wooded mountain slope. It was the middle of the night and she was flying through the air in the ballroom, having just slid down a hill of snow on her belly, then shooting off a ramp of Elsa's making.

Day again, and she was skating around a frozen pond. Elsa was following right behind her, except… she, Anna, had never learned to skate, had she? Night, and the skates had been replaced by her thick winter boots. The pond was gone as well. Instead, she was gliding over a perfectly smooth sheet of ice that covered the floor of the Grand Hall. Yet despite the other changes, Elsa remained right there with her.

She and Elsa were sitting together, arms wrapped around each other in a sisterly hug, admiring the little snowman they'd just built together. But were they outside or indoors? The background flickered, unable to decide which scene to settle on.

Suddenly, all the images vanished as she was struck with an overwhelming, overpowering sense of cold. Mind and body both went numb, frozen, unable to respond to anything. Her entire world was dark stillness for a very long while, until there at last came a distant sense of motion. It was a rolling sort of bounce that she'd had little experience with at the time. She thought she could recognize it now, though. She was on a horse and riding fast.

Then, much to her surprise, she found herself revisiting someplace that she knew beyond any doubt she'd definitely experienced before. Not that this helped make matters any less bizarre, because the last time she'd been here, she had been been fast asleep and dreaming.

Something hard and rough, yet surprisingly gentle, brushed her forehead. There were noises too, seemingly faint and far off. It took her a moment to recognize them as voices, though she could not identify the individual speakers at first. Then somehow, though Anna was fairly confident it was through no effort of her own, the voices grew a little louder. It wasn't much, but it was just enough that she could make out words that she had not been able to hear before.

"You are lucky it wasn't her heart," said an old voice, full of the wisdom of years. "The heart is not so easily changed, but the head can be persuaded."

"Do what you must." A man's voice: one that, it seemed to Anna, she both did and didn't remember.

"I recommend we remove all magic, even memories of magic, to be safe. But don't worry, I'll leave the fun."

There was an infuriated cry that did not originate from inside Anna's head. Images returned again, flashing by even faster than before, as if someone was riffling through the pages of her past in a desperate search for something. Everything was moving too quickly for Anna to be able to make much sense of it all, though she caught glimpses here and there.

She saw herself sitting outside Elsa's door, talking about silly trifles in the hopes that her sister might be listening. She was standing in the garden, holding a wooden sword and sparring with her friend, Marie. She was astride her horse, Adelen, guiding him in slow circles around the courtyard. She was walking through a long, dark tunnel, a lantern held aloft in her trembling hand, only managing to continue forward because she knew that a day of freedom outside the castle walls awaited her at the other end. She was shouting at Elsa as her sister, with a stricken look but barely a backward glance, slipped out of sight through the door of the royal study. She was dressed all in black, standing between the two cenotaphs that stood in memory of her departed parents. She was dancing with Hans at the coronation ball. She was pursuing Elsa up the steps of the Ice Palace. She was…

...shivering as she walked beside Kristoff. "Don't worry," he said. "They'll be able to fix this?"

"How do you know?" she asked.

"Because I've seen them do it before."

She was standing in a hole in the floor of the troll's hollow, needing Kristoff's support just to stay upright, as the wizened old patriarch of the clan held her hands and spoke gravely to her. "Anna, your life is in danger. There is ice in your heart, put there by your sister. If not removed, to solid ice will you freeze, forever."

Kristoff, his voice full of concern, spoke from beside her. "But you can remove it, right?"

"I cannot. I'm sorry, Kristoff. If it was her head, that would be easy, but… only an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart."

"NO!"

The scream tore through the night, tore through Anna, as her eyes suddenly became aware of the world around her once again. The Snow Queen's face was still uncomfortably near her own, but now it was horribly distorted with emotions so terrible, Anna blanched just to see them so closely. She felt more than saw the woman's fingers curl into fists on either side of her head, felt the nails drag across her temples as the hands clenched. There was cold fire in the brilliantly blue eyes, and maybe something else as well.

Were those… tears?

"No, no, no, no," the Snow Queen repeated over and over again, her entire body shaking as though it wasn't enough for her head alone to deny what she had just seen in Anna's mind. "It can't be. It can't. After all this time. After all this waiting. I was sure. I was so sure. There must be… there must be some mistake. I must have missed something, misunderstood something. I'll… I'll look again. Yes, I'll look harder this time. There must have been something I simply didn't see."

Anna thrashed her head back and forth, the only movement left to her, not eager to have her mind invaded by this woman a second time. It was no good, of course. With her body immobilized by ice, there really was nothing she could do to prevent the Snow Queen's hands from clamping down around her face again.

The waking world faded away and, though she tried her hardest to resist, Anna found her past laid bare. One by one, every memory she'd ever made with or about Elsa was brought forth to be examined, considered, dissected. It was as though she was being forced to completely relive her life, albeit in fits and starts. Everything was there, clearer than she could ever have recalled on her own. The sights, the sounds, even the smells all replayed within her head. Her soul experienced all the same emotions, only now at a tremendously accelerated pace. She retained just enough awareness of her own body to realize that it was laughing at every happy moment, crying along with every remembered tear. Soon, she was left so exhausted that even her attempts to fight off the invasion weakened and then ceased.

When the Snow Queen removed her hands a second time, Anna slumped limply in her seat. She felt the dampness on her own cheeks, stinging as the cold winter air tried to freeze her tears in place. After the strain of what she'd just experienced, it was an effort just to keep her eyes open. Her mind seemed to echo with those memories that had been given the most thorough scrutiny. Oddly enough, they hadn't been about Elsa. Instead, she kept hearing disjointed snippets of conversation with Kristoff about his adopted family. The faces of Bulda, Cliff, Crystal, Flint, Orel, and all the other trolls wavered in and out of focus. Through it all, Grand Pabbie's ancient voice kept repeating, like some bizarre mantra, "If it were her head, that would be easy. The head can be persuaded."

"It's true." The Snow Queen's voice was trembling, threatening to crack. "It's true. It was the trolls. The old troll, not Elsa. She didn't… doesn't… She can't..." A shuddering breath shook her, and now Anna saw, beyond any doubt, the glistening moisture that was threatening to spill out from behind the woman's eyelids.

The Snow Queen hung her head in apparent despair. She was still leaning in so close to Anna that their foreheads touched as a result. Anna was too weak and, honestly, too shocked to do anything about it. For her part, the other woman seemed so despondent that she neither noticed nor cared. Through that contact, though, the princess felt the tremors in the Queen's body. Such silent sobs from a figure who had always remained so determinedly cold and aloof seemed nearly impossible.

Despite herself – despite all common sense and reason, and despite everything that had been done to her – Anna almost thought that, had her arms been free, she might have wrapped them around the shivering shoulders and tried to comfort the seemingly wretched woman. It was simply her nature to want to reach out and help others whenever she saw them suffering. True, she didn't quite understand the reason for this particular distress. But then, there was something else at play as well.

Between the unearthly light of the aurora and the unexpected vulnerability that she was suddenly displaying, the Snow Queen's resemblance to Elsa had never been stronger than it was at that very moment.

"I'm… I'm sorry," she said. It sounded more like question than comfort, because Anna herself wasn't entirely sure what she was feeling right then. The whole thing had taken her completely by surprise, and her mind and body were now so drained that any attempt to make sense of it all was really quite beyond her. In the absence of rational thought, her oldest instincts toward courtesy and compassion were taking over, misplaced though they might be. "I don't know that there's much I can do, but if there's any way that I can help..."

"You? Help?" The Snow Queen's head came up with a jerk. Her eyes, though still brimming with tears, now bored into Anna's with a fierce anger. "You stupid girl! How could you possibly help? You lied to me!"

Perhaps it was being called a stupid girl that jarred Anna partway out of her torpor. She'd been trying her best to be polite, after all. There was no reason to be so rude! Or maybe it was the heated tone in which the words had been spoken that managed to rekindle her own fiery sass. Either way, her response was considerably less gracious than before.

"Okay, first, you kidnapped me, remember? I really don't have a lot of experience in either role, but I'm pretty sure that the kidnapper/kidnappee relationship typically doesn't include a great deal of honest sharing! And second, I didn't lie. You jumped to a conclusion, and I chose not to correct you. There's a difference. Third, I don't see why it's such a big deal whether or not Elsa was the one who erased my memories. She has your snow magic, and that was what you wanted, wasn't it? That was your grand experiment? Oh, and fourth..."

"Be silent!" The Snow Queen's shoulders were heaving again, but this time, it wasn't from weeping. She was positively seething with rage. "How dare you! How dare you speak to me with such an insolent tongue! How dare you presume to know my mind! What right have you? You, who knows nothing about anything! Who knows nothing about me!"

"Well, who's fault is that?" Anna shot back. "How am I supposed to know you when all you ever do is ask questions but you never answer any of mine? You can't do this whole, 'Ooh, I'm the great and mysterious Snow Queen,' thing and then complain that people don't know you!"

"I can and shall do whatever I wish."

"Oh, yeah? Well, you can't change the fact that it was the trolls, and not Elsa, who messed with my memories, now can you?"

The Snow Queen glowered at Anna darkly. The green light reflecting off her pale skin lent her an almost sepulchral look. When she at last replied, the heat from earlier was gone. In its place was nothing but cold menace.

"Perhaps not. So I suppose that means that I will simply have to content myself with doing the next best thing."

Stabbing pain shot through Anna's skull from the point where icy lips touched her forehead. Colors exploded behind her eyes that had nothing to do with the Northern Lights. An anguished cry escaped her lips as the world swam around her. If not for the bindings that still held her in place, she might well have crumpled from the exquisite agony.

"Anna? Anna! Are you okay? Hey, Anna!"

Her mind latched on to Olaf's voice, using it like a lifeline to claw its way back up from the depths of her suffering. When she finally reopened her eyes, she couldn't at first tell which patches of light in the sky were real and which were the random firings of overtaxed nerves. She barely had the strength to move her head, so it was helpful when the snowman crawled up into her lap and peered at her with greatest concern. Somehow, his trunk and legs must have managed to scrabble into the back and retrieve his head.

"Are you okay?" he asked again.

"Not really," she groaned feebly. "What… what just happened?"

Olaf's eyes darted fleetingly toward the Snow Queen. Then he looked back at Anna and replied, "What's the last thing you remember?"

Anna looked puzzled and a bit taken aback by the strange question. Even so, she gave it some thought before answering. "I was having an argument. With her." She shot her own dirty look at the Snow Queen.

"Uh huh. And what was it about?"

"About how rude and stubborn and secretive and antisocial and… and… and delusional she is!"

"Right, right. Maybe not the way I would have put it to a woman with freezing powers and anger issues, but okay. What else do you remember?"

"Olaf, I don't understand. What's going on?"

"Please, Anna. What were you talking about before the argument?"

She thought again. "She was convinced that Elsa was the one who modified my memories, and she didn't believe me when I told her that Elsa didn't do it. In fact, she got really upset."

Olaf appeared to relax a little. "Oh. Well, good! I guess everything's okay then after all! Unless… How's your head feeling?"

Anna's nose and forehead wrinkled. "It still hurts a little, but not as much as it did a few seconds ago." She made a motion as though attempting to raise a hand to rub at her brow, but her limbs remained firmly locked in place. Addressing the Snow Queen, she grumbled, "I don't suppose you'd be willing to let me loose now."

The Snow Queen had taken up the reins again and seemed to be purposefully ignoring the conversation beside her, but one finger twitched lazily, and Anna's bindings shattered into tiny shards.

"Thank you," Anna mumbled, keeping her gratitude as quiet as possible. She only said it out of a habit of propriety, not because she thought the wicked woman had actually earned it. Her fingers rose and began to massage the ache behind her eyes.

 _Of course, Elsa didn't change my memories,_ Anna thought scornfully. _Okay, so her magic hit me in the head one time and knocked me out. Big deal. I got better, didn't I? Just because I don't remember how, that doesn't mean it was Elsa's fault. I was unconscious, wasn't I? Right, so there was no way I could have known what happened! And if some of my other memories were_ _a_ _little fuzzy afterward… Well, I've heard that head trauma can do strange things like that sometimes._ _That's all it was. S_ _imple as that!_

Lowering her hand, she tilted her head back and gazed up at the curtains of green and red that continued to shimmer across the night sky. A lingering throb caused her to briefly shut her eyes, but she still saw the aurora. This time, though, it was through the window of her bedroom. The window looked so much bigger in her mind's eye than it really was, because she herself had been so very small on that night when she had wakened Elsa and begged her to come play.

Her eyes opened again, and she could almost believe that she was perched atop the palace, watching the lights dance, wishing that she'd been permitted to go off to Corona and dance the night away herself amid all the pageantry and revelry. She hadn't known then that it would be another three years before she would finally get her chance to do just that at Elsa's coronation.

Unfortunately, that night had gone about as wrong as it was possible to go. Elsa had fled in terror and shame after she mistakenly exposed her secret to the world. Anna had pursued her for two nights and two days. She'd had to fight wolves and the elements, not to mention her own dangerous tendency to always leap before looking. And yet, when she'd finally made it to the Ice Palace, she'd somehow managed to only make things worse.

She remembered that the sky had also been ablaze that night as she'd made her way back to Arendelle. It had seemed a much longer journey than the outbound trip, doubtless because the ice in her heart had been slowly spreading throughout her body. Had she been alone, she wasn't sure that she would have made it. Thankfully, though, she'd had Olaf. The little snowman's constant chatter had helped to keep her mind off her dire situation, helped to keep her alert and moving until she'd finally managed to stumble home through the castle gates.

Anna looked down at the snowman where he sat on the bench beside her. Noticing her attention, he looked back at her as well. She smiled.

Yes, thank goodness for Olaf. Twice now, he had been her lone and loyal companion through darkness and danger. Both times, he had lifted her spirits and kept her going when even her own deep reserves of optimism had threatened to run dry. She didn't know how she ever would have survived without him. She owed him her life.

"Ooh, look at that one," she said, pointing out to him a particularly spectacular blossom of color that just burst into view overhead. Following her finger, he crooned happily as he caught sight of it, his face lighting up in a broad, open-mouthed grin.

Little did he know how quickly his happiness would have evaporated if only he had been able to hear the thoughts inside Anna's head. If he had – if he'd realized at that moment that nothing now remained of her memories of Sven, the trolls, or of Kristoff – perhaps he might have had a chance to alter the unseen path that, even then, was silently beginning to unfold before him.

But he did not. Instead, he simply spent the next hour or two enjoying nature's miraculous light show with Anna while the Snow Queen's sleigh carried them all inexorably forward, racing toward everything that callous fate yet held in store.


	24. The Treachery of Words

The wine glass stood, nearly forgotten, upon the large mahogany desk. The attention of its would-be drinker was focused instead upon a badly crumpled sheet of paper he held in his hand. One passage in particular held his eye, though he hardly needed to see the tight, precise writing anymore. He had read the words often enough of late that, even when he closed his eyes, the letters had a tendency to linger.

 _The steward, a man named Kai, says that he was abducted by this Snow Queen when he was a child. Furthermore, he claims he was rescued by his friend Gerda, who now happens to serve as the palace's head cook. Their story seems almost too fantastical for belief, filled as it is with strange encounters, implausible coincidences, bizarre magics, memories lost and then found. Indeed, had I not witnessed the events in the courtyard with my own eyes, I would have considered anyone spouting such a tale to be quite mad._

Ragnarr's teeth ground together. Memories lost and then found. When he'd first perused this report in the shadow of the Memorial Hill, that phrase had burrowed into his mind. Having been more concerned at the time with matters of immediate strategic importance, the implications had not registered immediately. Once they had, however, he'd been left both shaken and shaking.

During his time in exile, he had nursed two obsessions. Both had involved getting back what once had been his. After much planning, conniving, coercion, bribery, and (above all) time, he now had finally reclaimed Arendelle's throne. Unfortunately, his second goal continued to elude him. And though he had, of necessity, become a more patient man over the years, he still did not take setbacks and disappointments well.

When the bishop had responded to the royal summons, Ragnarr had been convinced he was about to have everything restored that had been so unceremoniously stripped away from him. The assembly had been small. Besides the two principals involved, only Major Nagel and an altar-boy had been present inside the chapel. Two soldiers had also been posted outside the doors to see that no one interrupted the proceedings.

Per the explicit instructions he'd been given, the bishop had blessed Ragnarr. He had anointed the returned king with holy water and wafted vapors upon him from the censer. Then he had recited the psalm, speaking with extraordinary care and precision.

Ragnarr had knelt before the altar, receiving these sacraments with barely restrained anticipation. His eyes closed, he had focused on allowing every single word to flow through his ears and straight to his brain. This was it. This would surely bring back to him whatever it was that wicked woman had stolen all those long years ago.

When the bishop had at last fallen silent, Ragnarr had not even breathed. He'd simply waited for the sensation to hit him. He had no idea what it might feel like, of course, to have memories suddenly become available again that had long been buried by magic. Still, he had been convinced that he would certainly feel something: euphoria, perhaps a sense of revelation, or at least one of completeness.

All he'd felt was a stiffness in his knees from the cold weather and the unforgiving floor.

He'd demanded that the bishop repeat the psalm again. When nothing happened the second time, Ragnarr's temper had begun to fray. He insisted that they try a different psalm, then another. His anger mounted with each failure. So too did the volume of his orders, until the bishop, growing ever more fearful of the king's wrath, had begun to stammer so badly that the last hymn became almost unintelligible. At that point, Ragnarr had sprung to his feet and, with a roar of frustration, stormed out of the chapel.

He'd spent the rest of that day closeted in his chambers, struggling to retain the self-control he had earned through both age and hardship. This had not gone well, and he'd been left vacillating between silent fuming and violent rage. No one, not even Major Nagel, had dared to so much as walk past his door for fear of what might befall them if it were to suddenly burst open.

But that had been days ago. By this time, Ragnarr had curbed his anger. The fury that had splintered several pieces of delicate furniture had now turned inward and become a sort of brooding gloom that steadily fed upon itself. That this failure should serve to tarnish the enjoyment of his earlier triumph only made him all the more sullen. He had thought to wash away that bitter taste with the sweet numbness of wine. It hadn't helped.

There came a knock upon the door. "Enter," he called out, glancing up from the paper as the door opened and his visitor stepped inside. "Major," he acknowledged with a curt nod.

"Your Majesty." His adjutant bowed respectfully.

Ragnarr gave the missive in his hand a final scowl before setting it aside and picking up the glass instead. While taking an indifferent sip, he watched Nagel over the rim and tried to decide from his face whether the report the officer had come to deliver would make his mood better or worse. To his minor annoyance, he could not tell. The major had a knack for keeping his expression positively inscrutable.

Setting the glass back down on the desk, Ragnarr leaned back in his chair and allowed his surreptitious scrutiny of the man to become blatantly overt. He said nothing, but just stared fixedly at Nagel's face. Others in the past had quickly begun to squirm whenever he'd gifted them with a similar baleful look. Some of those with the discipline of military training had fared better by fixing their eyes on a point beyond his shoulder, as though awaiting orders from a drill sergeant or superior officer.

Nagel did neither. He simply met Ragnarr's gaze stoically, his expression betraying nothing except, perhaps, a vague curiosity. It was a face that a consummate gambler might have spent a lifetime perfecting. Ragnarr found it simultaneously impressive and somewhat irritating. At last, with a grunt, he waved a hand in the man's direction. "What is it, Major?"

"We have finally received word back from the men sent to secure the garrison at Ingensteds, Your Majesty. It was much the same as what he heard from Fort Blekne. They encountered no resistance to speak of. In fact, they encountered no one at the base at all. The post had apparently been abandoned. All stores, provisions, and munitions were gone as well."

"Blast!" Ragnarr's fist slammed onto the desk. The wine glass jumped, then wobbled precariously for a moment before settling down about a centimeter or two from where it had started. It had been far more startled than Major Nagel, who gave no apparent reaction at all.

"An argument could be made that this is still a victory, sir," he said. "The fortifications have been occupied by our troops. They took sufficient weapons with them to seize it by force if necessary, so they should be well-equipped to hold it now even without the munitions they expected to find on site. Food would probably be the greater concern, but they already had plans to take whatever they might need from surrounding villages in the event of a siege. They can do the same now, if it comes to that."

"Right now, I am less concerned about what our men do and don't have than I am about what our enemies seem to possess." Ragnarr began drumming his fingers upon the desk, hoping that this small action might be enough to keep him from indulging in any larger displays of his vexation. "Not only do they have soldiers, weapons, and food taken from our own storehouses, but they also appear to have superior intelligence. They know when we are coming, and they know far enough in advance to have evacuated before we even arrive."

"They know, and yet they flee," Nagel pointed out. "They could have used that time to make preparations, to fortify, to stand and fight. Yet they did not. It would seem that even they realize they cannot win."

Ragnarr shook his head. "No. This was not a surrender. Nor was it a frantic flight before a feared enemy. These men were trained soldiers, and they completely emptied their armory when they left. There can only be two reasons for that."

"The same reason they took the rest of their supplies: to prevent us from using them."

"That is only part of the answer. Had they been fleeing in panic, fire would have been a far faster and more efficient method of keeping their materiel out of our hands. With luck or a bit of skill, it could even have damaged the fortifications themselves, further weakening our position. However, they took the time to pack it all. They chose to slow themselves down by carrying it all with them.

"I find the implications of that decision to be most disturbing, Major. First, it suggests they had ample warning of our approach, enough that they could afford the delay required to make such preparations. And second, you do not burden yourself on a long journey with anything that you do not intend to use. Nor do you leave behind anything that an enemy might find useful, unless you plan to return and take it back."

"Sir," said Nagel, "you knew that there would be a certain amount of resistance to your return. Surely, actions such as these were to be expected."

"Of course, I expected resistance. More than most, soldiers tend to be averse to change that they themselves have not created. What I did not anticipate was any intelligence or cunning behind their actions. I had hoped to move quickly enough that they would not have time to plan or organize themselves. That was why I was not as concerned with the first incident at Fort Blekne. Once is a mistake. Our forces could easily have been seen and the defenders warned. What we witnessed there might merely have been the defiant actions of a single brazen commander.

"That the exact same scenario has now played out twice cannot be mere coincidence. The actions taken by these two garrisons were somehow coordinated."

The major pondered this. "That hardly seems possible. The two lie in completely opposite directions from the capital. Even a mounted rider could not possibly have traveled from Fort Blekne to Ingensteds swiftly enough to have warned them what was coming, much less in time for them to have emptied the place so thoroughly. Unless..." His eyes narrowed as the implications of this train of thought sank in.

Ragnarr nodded. "Unless both were warned by someone from the capital."

"So you suspect a traitor?"

"Having been betrayed once, I've never stopped suspecting it since. That does not make it the only possible explanation, however, nor the most likely. There are many who remain loyal to the former queen and who could have sent warnings to those outposts. Too many, in fact. The dungeons are not big enough to hold all who might oppose me. But our more immediate problem is that the number of loyal soldiers I brought with me is too small to fend off a full-blown rebellion."

"Then how should we deal with the situation, sir?"

For a while, neither man spoke. Ragnarr's fingers abandoned their drumming and instead began, in a distracted sort of way, to rub the coarse beard covering his chin. Without saying a word, he pushed back his chair and stood, turning to face the window behind him. Major Nagel simply watched his commander with an air of patient expectation.

Finally, without turning around, Ragnarr spoke. "I believe," he said thoughtfully, "that the time has come for me to address the people of Arendelle."

• • •

A platform was quickly erected at the far end of the bridge, away from the castle and facing the open square that abutted the docks. But even faster than the construction was the way news of the speech seemed to spread throughout the town. Notices were posted in every inn, tavern, and gathering place. Consideration was briefly given to sending criers out into the streets to announce the event as well, but it became clear almost immediately that such word of mouth was unnecessary; the townspeople were taking care of that aspect perfectly well on their own. It was all anyone seemed to be talking about.

So it was that, when the morning came at last, the square was packed to capacity. It appeared that everyone, regardless of their personal feelings concerning the man and his actions, wanted to hear for themselves exactly what Ragnarr might have to say.

As the clock tower began to toll the midday hour, the castle gates swung open and a hush fell over the assembled crowd. A small cluster of figures appeared beneath the archway, then started to walk in stately procession across the bridge. Half a dozen soldiers served as escort for Ragnarr, marching forward in a rough circle around him. Considering that he stood nearly a full head above the tallest of his guards, however, the resulting effect came across more like a goose shepherding its brood of goslings forward.

The soldiers parted as they reached the foot of the wooden dais. Ragnarr proceeded to climb the four steps alone, in two long strides and with no apparent effort, while the guards arrayed themselves in a line below and before him. Facing the press of people, Ragnarr drew back his shoulders, clasped his hands together behind his back, and stepped forward to the front edge of the rostrum. As his eyes swept over the sea of faces, the last of the murmurs and whispers died away, along with the final peel from the clock tower. Then his deep voice boomed out, ringing almost like a thirteenth stroke from the mighty bells.

"Snow has never been a stranger in Arendelle," he proclaimed. "It has always been part of our lives. For many of our neighbors, it has even been their livelihood. They brave the mountainous heights and treacherous passes to harvest ice, for sale both here and abroad. Every man, woman, and child in this kingdom knows well how to weather the winter. And so, though it has occasionally led to a certain amount of inconvenience, it has never been a source of great worry or fear.

"That all changed this past summer, when everything you thought you knew about winter's ways was rendered meaningless in a single night. The ground covered with snow. The fjord frozen. The temperature below zero. In the middle of July! Of course, you were frightened. It was unnatural. It was sorcery. If there was devilry in this world capable of creating such a monstrous disaster, what else might also be possible?

"But then, Queen Elsa returned to you, and she made all of the ice and the snow disappear. And though it was she herself who had called them down upon you in the first place, you found it in your hearts to forgive her. After all, she was beautiful and kind, and you had all seen how terrified she'd been the night of the coronation. Surely, it had been an accident – one that she had now undone and put right. Who could ask for fairer than that? The sun was bright again, the weather warm, and a new ruler wore the crown. After such a fright, you naturally welcomed the chance to resume the celebrations that had been cut so lamentably short. And as summer passed and autumn drew on without further incident, you allowed yourselves to believe that life had returned to exactly the way it was meant to be.

"Tell me: who among you feels that way now?"

Heads turned this way and that as those assembled glanced uncomfortably at one another, unsure whether an answer was expected, unwilling to venture one in any case.

"I know that you are afraid," Ragnarr continued, reclaiming the people's attention with his stentorian voice. "How could you not be? Winter lies upon you again, and although this time you were better prepared, you cannot possibly ignore the fact that it began much too soon and its grip has been far too strong. Oh, but you have tried. You wanted so badly to believe that Arendelle had seen the last of the extraordinary that you blinkered yourselves, refusing to see what was right before your eyes.

"A curse lies upon this kingdom!" he bellowed, causing many in the crowd to jump. He pointed back at the castle gates. "A curse that gave itself form and invaded the very heart of the realm! A curse that spirited away your princess. A curse that, by her own words, is responsible for the tragic abnormality in my granddaughter that has led to so much grief, pain, and suffering!"

He paused, lowering his eyes and taking a moment to compose himself. He then drew in a deep breath, and when he spoke again, the furious passion was still there, but it now was held tightly in check.

"I have not been honest with you," he said solemnly. "I said that everything changed last summer. That is not true. The change actually began many years ago, though none knew it at the time. For that, I take full responsibility. Because I knew, or at least I'd caught the first glimpse of what was to come. Yet I told no one. How could I? Who would have believed me? They would have thought me insane. Had I heard such a story, I would have called it madness myself. Only I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. I saw her.

"I fought the Snow Queen. And I barely escaped with my life."

A few gasps issued from the audience, but sounds of incredulous muttering quite overwhelmed them. Ragnarr had expected no less. It would, after all, have been only too easy for him to concoct this story as an opportunistic lie to play upon their fears. The task now before him was to convince them he had done no such thing. That his story was true hardly guaranteed success.

"Surely, there are some among you who still remember. Shortly before my reign came to an end, I'd traveled to Lapland on an errand of diplomacy. That was where I encountered the witch, on a hunt the day before we were to set sail for home.

"We met among the trees and snow. I was a formidable huntsman in those days. Not even my fiercest enemies would deny me that. Yet for all my skill, I might as well have been a child flinging pebbles. The most I managed to do was wound one of her familiars – those bears of hers. In hindsight, I suppose my failure was fortunate, for even that was enough to send her into a rage. No blizzard has ever been as cold or as deadly. That I survived was not due to any cleverness, bravery, or strength of my own. I am alive only because she chose not to kill me.

"Still, as powerless as I had been, I knew I had to do whatever I could to prepare and protect Arendelle. I had met a force unlike anything I'd ever imagined. It had to be stopped. I thought to avert the coming storm, to strike a mortal blow before it could unleash its wrath upon us. So I began to prepare the kingdom for war. I sought to gather all the might and valor that Arendelle could muster, to send it crashing down upon the Snow Queen like a thunderbolt! I would have seen her brought low, humbled and undone.

"And for that hubris, I was banished from my home and my people! I was sent into exile even as this threat to our peace and our families loomed ever larger. I should have fought harder. I should never have let myself be sent away when my kingdom needed me the most. In that also, I failed. I understand if you cannot now forgive me that failure.

"I can only say that I'd already been staggered by my encounter in Lapland. When those who I sought to shield from that same wrath instead turned on me and cast me out, it came very close to breaking me. Though it shames me to admit, I despaired for a time, worried as I was that the danger of the Snow Queen might well have followed me home, and there was nothing I would be able to do to stop it. The only action that had been left to me was to watch from afar in dread and despair.

"And then, nothing happened. I continued waiting, certain that it was only a matter of time. Yet time passed, and Arendelle went on, seemingly untouched and untroubled. I remained convinced that it couldn't last. But at last, after years of constant fear, I allowed myself to relax. It appeared that my homeland was safe, and that was all that mattered. So I turned away and looked instead to finally begin building a new life for myself on the continent.

"Then came Queen Elsa's Coronation Day. As soon as news of those events reached my ears, I knew – knew beyond any ghost of a doubt – what would surely follow, and so I moved as swiftly as I could to return. Yet I could not come alone. One man would make little difference against a force of nature. So I gathered as many soldiers as I could quickly muster to bring to Arendelle's defense.

"I would have liked nothing better than to sail straight into this harbor, but I feared that any ship seen entering these waters with me and a company of soldiers aboard would be sunk on sight. So I was forced to sneak into this kingdom like a thief in the night, instead of as a man returning home after far too long away. The need for deceit sickened me, but I could see no surer or faster way. And yet, despite my best effort, I still arrived too late..."

Ragnarr allowed his voice to trail off. Normally blunt and succinct in his speech, he was not used to such lengthy orations. Still, he'd had to curry favor with his share of long-winded blowhards during his exile. He'd long struggled to understand how such people, whose tongues were the sharpest instruments they'd ever wielded, somehow managed to rise to positions of power. Did actions count for nothing these days? All the same, he'd been forced to spend interminable hours listening to their prattle before he could finally get (or give) the gentle nudges needed to help advance his plans.

In the end, that time had not been as completely wasted as it had first seemed. Never let it be said that he could not pick up new skills, even at his age, particularly if he thought he might one day be able to turn them to his own advantage.

Once again, he looked out over the mass of people packed into the square. Then inwardly, he smiled. He must have learned his lessons well enough, for none were whispering to their neighbors now. He had at least succeeded at capturing their undivided attention. Doubt still lingered on many of the faces, but that only made him even more satisfied with himself. After all, hadn't that been the purpose behind this speech? Doubt was far better than certain hatred.

 _Enough of the past,_ he thought. _The time has come to begin shaping tomorrow._

"It would be folly to think that we have seen the last of the Snow Queen," he proclaimed loudly. "Whatever powers my granddaughter might possess, I do not believe for a moment that she can defeat that ice witch utterly. Should she rescue her sister and escape, then doubtless they will return with the Snow Queen on their heels, bringing with her a winter that might well end this kingdom forever. Nor could we allow her to sacrifice herself in a bid to earn Princess Anna's freedom. What terrible fate would await the world if two such forces were ever to unite? Might we not find ourselves plunged into a new ice age?

"And heaven forbid that either of Arendelle's daughters should perish at the hands of that cold-blooded harpy. Were that to happen, I'm sure all would agree that we'd have no choice but to declare war upon the Snow Queen in the name of honor and righteous fury!

"Whatever course fate may take, it is clear that our future is fraught with peril. There may come a day for recriminations. If we are fortunate, then we will have time enough for all to answer for their mistakes. I know I have made my share. I deeply regret the violence I was forced to use in order to subdue those soldiers who were merely doing their duty by loyally guarding the castle. The unfortunate death of Sergeant Yan Vik will forever weigh upon my conscience. Yet I only acted out of a desire to save as many of the people of this good land as I possibly could.

"There are others in the dungeons whose motives may not have been so noble. Perhaps they thought, as I did, that they were merely acting for the good of the kingdom. Or perhaps they were acting only for their own self-interest. What is clear is that, although we all kept silent about what we knew, I at least attempted to use my knowledge to prepare Arendelle against this threat. They held their tongues and did nothing!

"Such inaction is a luxury that we can no longer afford. The time has come for all who remain loyal to Arendelle to stand together as one! If we do not, then we have little chance against a foe such as the one we now face. We must prepare ourselves for whatever may come. We must prepare for the worst.

"For I have learned that the Snow Queen has powers beyond what we saw in the palace courtyard! It is said that she has also the ability to change the memories of those she touches. Imagine that. Imagine your beloved Elsa with no idea who she is or where she came from. Then imagine what the Snow Queen might whisper into her ear.

"Imagine the two of them, their powers combined, wholly bereft of all mercy and compassion."

As if on cue, a rush of arctic air suddenly blasted in from across the harbor. Men and women alike scrambled to keep hats and bonnets upon their heads. Loose snow from nearby rooftops was picked up and twirled through the crazed vortexes. The cold wind found its way inside coat and cloak alike and set more than a few to shivering.

It was all Ragnarr could do not to roar with triumph, so it was only with difficulty that he waited for the gust to subside. When he spoke into the quiet that marked its passing, he did not shout. Even so, his final sentence carried to every ear in the square.

"Those who would keep Arendelle safe would do well to remember where the true danger lies."

With that, he stepped backward, turned around, and descended from the platform. The soldiers who had accompanied him from the castle now closed around him again. Together, they marched back across the bridge. As they went, the sounds of stunned silence behind them gave way to furious chatter. At last, Ragnarr allowed himself a smile.

Major Nagel awaited their return just inside the gates. Once within the castle's protective walls, the soldiers dispersed, leaving him and Ragnarr to complete the walk to the palace alone.

"I think that went well. Wouldn't you agree, Major?" Ragnarr asked with only a hint of smugness.

"Yes, sir. But do you really think it will be enough to stop whoever sent those warnings to the outlying garrisons?"

"Doubtful. However, I am hopeful that individual may find it a bit more difficult to recruit others who are quite so sympathetic to their cause. If they continue in their attempts, perhaps some loyal citizen might even decide that it would be in the best interests of the kingdom to turn that person in to the proper authorities.

"Victory rarely comes instantly, Major. But every move in the game brings us one step closer."

"Yes, sir."

"And speaking of next moves," Ragnarr continued, his voice turning a shade darker, "what updates from the engineers?"

"They are still working through some difficulties, sir. The cold weather is causing problems with certain components, and..."

"The entire point is for them to be able to work in the cold," Ragnarr growled. His satisfaction with his recent performance was not quite enough to suppress his frustration with the continued lack of progress on this front. "They're useless otherwise."

"Understood, sir. The engineers assure me that this is only a minor setback, and one that they remain confident they will be able to overcome with a little more time."

Ragnarr stopped at the threshold of the palace to turn and glare at his subordinate. "I have given them time, Major. So far, I have received nothing in return. Tell them that they have one more week to demonstrate something functional. If they fail to do so, then they will be given significantly more time to contemplate their failure, albeit under far less comfortable circumstances."

Without waiting for a reply, he reached out, yanked one of the doors open with a savage pull, and stormed through. Major Nagel watched his retreating back and the trail of slushy footprints that Ragnarr's heavy boots left across the entrance hall floor.

As he himself turned and set off to deliver the latest ultimatum to the hapless band of engineers, he couldn't help but wonder how long it would be before he inevitably found himself on the receiving end of His Majesty's unpredictable temper.


	25. To Light You on Your Way

Kristoff had never been good at situations like this.

Elsa lay, curled in upon herself, on the dank floor of the small, stony chamber. She had worn herself to exhaustion trying to recover her magic, yet the only change she'd managed to effect was to reduce herself to tears out of sheer frustration. Kristoff had watched, wanting desperately to help. Yet whenever he'd offered words of encouragement, they only seemed to make Elsa all the more aware of how badly her attempts were failing.

So instead, he had focused on coming up with an escape plan that didn't require the use of her powers at all. Unfortunately, the number of obstacles in their path were such that, even if Elsa's magic had been at full strength, he still wasn't sure how they'd have been able to pull it all off. For starters, they had no idea where Sven was being kept. Their sled was in a sorry state of disrepair. The labyrinthine tunnels might have allowed them to sneak around sight unseen, but he only had any sure sense of one way out, and that way led straight through the robbers' den. His mind soon developed the annoying habit of tossing these and other similar facts back at him every time he attempted to think his way out of their current predicament.

His own mental exertions had left him almost as worn out as Elsa. Still, he refused to sleep. He clung to a ridiculous hope that, tired as he was, the parts of his brain that kept throwing roadblocks in his way might doze off first and allow him to work through the rest of the problem in peace. He also felt that it would be unwise for both of them to sleep at the same time. If any of the robbers came to check on them, if the door of their makeshift cell were to open, he wanted to be ready to act, even if he had no idea what he might do. If nothing else, he considered it his responsibility to try and protect Elsa.

He wasn't the only one still awake, however. As far as he could tell in the dim light available to them, Elsa had barely moved at all in the last hour. Yet he'd heard sounds – small, stifled sounds that he was sure Elsa thought would be too quiet to reach him – that let him know she wasn't sleeping either. They weren't much more than sniffles and the occasional whimper, but he was fairly certain they weren't the sort of noises that might bubble up from the depths of a dream.

For the life of him, he couldn't decide whether he ought to try and talk to her. Maybe his next attempt at reassurance would go better, help calm her enough that she might be able to doze off, at least for a little while. He didn't know much about medicine and healing beyond some basic first aid, but it seemed to him that plenty of rest was rarely a bad prescription. But would starting a conversation really help with that, or would it only serve to drag her mind further away from slumber? And if he slipped up and said the wrong thing, he could quite possibly end up making matters far worse.

Well, the good news was that at least the thoughts of everything standing between them and freedom had finally left his head. Now they'd been replaced by thoughts of sleep, or their mutual lack of it. He himself seemed to have reached that bizarre state of being too tired to sleep, where the mind's obsession with its continued wakefulness prevents it from shutting down properly. But that also left it stubbornly unable to focus on much of anything else either. He wondered if the same thing was plaguing Elsa's mind, or if other demons were gnawing at her instead.

So he just sat there in the dark, feeling the cold stone behind his back and beneath his bottom. Since nothing he could think of was proving to be helpful, he decided to try and focus on thinking about exactly that… nothing. Maybe the miraculous answer he'd been seeking since they'd first been captured would finally poke its head out if it didn't sense him looking for it so hard. Or maybe, sufficiently starved for thoughts, his mind would end up falling asleep out of sheer boredom. Or maybe he'd simply spend the rest of the night thinking up more maybes.

Then, into that dark space that he was trying so very hard to keep empty, an unbidden memory slowly drifted up from the dark corners of his past. It crept up on him stealthily, so that he was hardly aware of it at first. Only when his own humming registered in his ears, in fact, did it present itself to his conscious mind. He fell silent for a moment then, startled to discover the recollection just sitting there, practically staring at him. He hadn't thought of it in years, but now that he had, he was surprised by how clearly it all came back to him.

He shifted slightly against the wall, straightening his knees and stretching his legs out across the floor before him. Closing his eyes, he let his mind drift backward. And then, in his mellow tenor voice, he began to softly sing.

 _Lay your head upon your bed  
Of moss and fern and stone.  
Have no fear and shed no tear,  
For you are not alone._

 _The moon is high up in the sky  
To light you on your way.  
And by its light, throughout the night,  
I'll watch until the day._

 _I hope it seems within your dreams  
That you are safe and sound.  
But if you're lost, like ship that's tossed,  
Know that you will be found._

 _I'll be here, my darling dear,  
Beside you all night long.  
So close your eyes, and 'til you rise,  
I will sing this song._

 _Crystals glow, and though you grow,  
Still put your faith in me.  
Do not fret, nor e'er forget  
That we are family._

He held the last note longer than any of the rest. Even so, the song finally came to an end, as all songs are wont to do. Then Kristoff sighed… and smiled.

"What was that?"

He opened his eyes, though his vision barely grew any the brighter for it. All the same, he turned his head in the direction of Elsa's voice when he answered.

"I'm not sure it has a name. Bulda used to sing it to me and Sven when we were little, especially on those nights when I found myself thinking about my parents for one reason or other. Sometimes, I just missed them so much, I couldn't keep from crying. Then that would upset Sven, of course. But Bulda would just come over to us, and she'd pull us in close to her, and she'd start to sing. And she'd keep singing it, over and over again, until we finally fell asleep.

"When we'd wake up the next morning, she'd always still be there, just like the song said. Half the time, we'd find that all the other troll children had rolled up around us, too, so that we were completely surrounded. Turns out, it's a lot more comfortable than you'd think, being hemmed in on all sides by rocks. Well, at least it is when those rocks are family."

There was a sound that Kristoff could almost have believed was a tiny laugh. Then, after a short pause, a quiet humming followed. It was Elsa's voice this time, experimentally feeling out the gentle, rolling melody. As he listened, Kristoff's fingers twitched. They wanted to accompany her, and now felt the absence of his lute most keenly.

After Elsa had completed a verse, she fell silent for a time. Just when Kristoff thought that the conversation had ended, though, she piped up again. "So Bulda made it up?"

"Nah," he said, grateful that he'd at least stumbled upon a welcome distraction that might take their minds off their worries for a while. "She told me that Grand Pabbie used to sing it to her when she was little, and that Grand Pabbie's mother had sung it for him before that. It must go back generations, maybe since before the founding of the colony."

"I'd say it goes back quite a bit further than that," said a coarse voice out of the darkness. "Though I guess that would probably depend on exactly what colony it is you're talking about."

Kristoff's head snapped around toward the door. He focused on the gap beneath it, expecting to see the shadows from a pair of feet standing just outside and blocking the ruddy torch light. There were none.

"Haven't heard that third verse before, though," came the voice again. "That's definitely new. Wherever you're from, it must be near the ocean, hmm?"

Elsa found her tongue first. Keeping quiet so as not to draw the guards' attention, she asked, "Wh-who is that? Where are you?"

"Oh, sorry! Spend so much time in the dark, I sometimes forget it's even there. Wait just a second."

There was a clinking sound, like several hard objects rattling against one another. Then with a flash, a red-orange glow suddenly appeared that most definitely did not come from underneath the door. In fact, it came from the opposite wall entirely and almost at the ceiling. Kristoff and Elsa both looked up, squinting against what seemed like an almost blinding brightness after so long with so little light. It came through a long but narrow crack. It took a minute for their eyes to adjust, but once they did, they saw that something else was peeking out from behind the fissure – two large, round eyes set in a face that was nearly the same color as the wall in front of it.

"A troll?"

"That I am." The figure took a second to adjust its position, and they caught a glimpse of an overly-wide, toothy grin through the gap in the stone before he set his eyes to the crack again. "I thought you were too when I heard that song bouncing off the walls. Sound can travel quite a distance through these tunnels, especially when you have a troll's ears! Normally, I wouldn't come anywhere near that ugly bunch who've set up shop in here, but that lullaby got me curious. Just couldn't resist coming to investigate. Thought maybe one of my cousins might've gotten lost or something. Imagine my surprise when I found two humans instead!"

Elsa glanced over at Kristoff, who returned her look with raised eyebrows. Meanwhile, the troll's wide eyes were examining them both more carefully now that there was a bit more light to see by. "Say," he said in a puzzled tone, "why are you all tied up like that?"

"The robbers attacked us," Kristoff explained in a voice not much above a whisper. "They dragged us back here, took our sled and everything in it, and locked us up in this old storeroom of theirs."

"Really? That doesn't sound like ol' Milda. Well, the first part does. She and her gang'll try to take anything they can get their hands on if it passes within a bird's flight from here. Got her pigeons trained to go out and watch the roads for her. Don't ask me how she pulled that off. But she normally leaves the people alone. Doesn't like to hurt anyone if she can help it."

Again, Kristoff and Elsa exchanged a look, though it was considerably more incredulous this time. "This Milda," Kristoff said. "Old woman? Short? Grumpy? Bit on the heavy side?"

"Yup, that's her!"

"Are you sure? Because she didn't exactly seem like the nonviolent type to us."

"Oh, she'll rough people up a bit if they give her trouble. Once she's got what she wants from them, though – and mind you, that's just about everything they might happen to have with them – she normally let's them go on their way. She'll even get angry with her boys if they start beating on someone who isn't trying to fight back." The troll's eyes narrowed. "From the state you're both in, I'm guessing the two of you didn't go down quietly."

"No," Kristoff agreed, "not exactly." Drawing his legs in again, he began using them to push himself up the wall until he was finally standing upright.

"Well, you're quite a ways from the ocean," the troll continued. "So what was it that brought you out here to the middle of nowhere, anyway?"

"Look," said Kristoff, coming to stand directly beneath the fissure, "I'd really love to chat about that and… well, everything else, too. I didn't even realize there were still troll clans living this far north! But do you think we might be able to go someplace else to talk? You know, some place with a little more room. Where we can stretch our legs a little. Someplace a bit less cavey, preferably with a slightly smaller number of robbers who are trying to ransom us!"

The eyes blinked twice before crinkling in amusement. "I think we might be able to manage that. Might take me a few minutes to make the arrangements, though. Just wait right there. I'll be back in a bit."

"Be careful," Elsa hissed from her spot on the floor. "They've posted guards outside."

"Yeah, but here's the thing, you see. People with any brains to begin with can usually find themselves better careers than thievery, can't they?" He winked. "By the way, the name's Rohl." And with that and a twinkle, both the eyes and the light vanished.

"I thought you said all the trolls fled the north long ago," Elsa whispered into the stillness that followed.

"I thought they did," answered Kristoff, and he shrugged even though the gesture was lost in the renewed darkness. "I mean, I never figured ours was the only clan out there. I even heard Grand Pabbie talk about a couple others once or twice, but it always sounded like they'd left for the south around the same time as his ancestors. If he knew that there were still trolls living up here, he never said."

"So do you think we can trust this one?"

"Do we have any choice? I'll tell you right now, though, I trust him more than I do a bunch of thieves. I suppose that's something. Besides, if he really can help us get out of here, that's more than enough for me right now."

"I know, but… Well, it's just an awful lot to expect that kind of help from a complete stranger who doesn't know anything about us except that he heard you singing some old song that he happened to recognize."

"Hey, Anna hired me to take her up the North Mountain with nothing more than a coil of rope, an ice axe, and a bag of carrots. And back then, I wasn't exactly the same sociable fellow that I am now. Sometimes people help others just because they think it's the right thing, you know. After all, it's exactly what Anna would do."

"Yes, well, Anna can also be a little… um..."

"Naive?" Kristoff offered. "Trusting? Or were you aiming more for 'optimistically generous?'"

"Anna is special. Sometimes, I don't think I appreciate exactly how special she is. She always sees the best in everyone, even when they don't see it in themselves."

"That doesn't mean she's the only one who would ever help a stranger," Kristoff said, somewhat indignantly.

"Really? Didn't you once say, 'People will beat you and curse you and cheat you. Every one of them's bad'?"

"No! I never said that."

"Kristoff."

"I didn't! Though I might have, um... Well, it's possible that I maybe, er… sang it. But how would you know that? You weren't there!"

"Anna and I did promise each other that there'd be no more secrets between us. We've spent as much time as we could catching up on everything we both missed. And Anna… Let's just say that she talked about you a good bit of that time."

It was almost surprising to Kristoff that the tiny storeroom remained dark. He felt like his face must surely be glowing as brightly as any torch right about then. He cleared his throat self-consciously, then replied as boldly as he could, "Obviously, I was talking about people people – I mean, human people, not trolls – at the time. I've always trusted my family, after all. But more than that, I was… well, I was wrong. There are… that is, I suppose there are... you know, some people who… well, who are, in the end… um… probably at least as good as any reindeer."

Elsa sighed. "I know you must be right. It's just that lately, I guess I've been having a hard time following Anna's example. We haven't exactly been having the best of luck with strangers, have we? First, it was Hans and the Duke. Then came the Snow Queen, the soldiers in Kråkeheim, and now these bandits. It's almost enough to make me think my father was right to be so afraid of how the world would react if they learned about my powers. So far, this magic seems to have brought out the worst in nearly everyone."

"That isn't true, and you know it. It's brought out the best in a lot of folks, too. Look at the citizens of Arendelle. They've been nothing but supportive. Look at Grand Pabbie and Bulda and the rest of my family. King Ulrik was a perfect gentleman once he realized that you weren't the Snow Queen. And it was like you said, his soldiers were only following orders. It was never personal.

"Everyone else you mentioned was obviously making trouble long before your secret slipped out. If it hadn't, then they all would have found some other excuse to stir things up. That doesn't mean that most people would act that way. And if thirteen years growing up with trolls has made me any judge of their character, then I still think this one is..."

But what exactly Kristoff thought of the troll, he didn't get the chance to say, because at that moment, a commotion erupted from the passage outside.

• • •

Rohl had to squeeze through the tightest part of the already narrow tunnel. Only the smallest of human children could have hoped to crawl along this dark path, but the troll was able to navigate most of it standing upright. Granted, it did get uncomfortable in a few places. Fortunately, he didn't have that much farther to go.

When it finally opened out onto a much taller and broader tunnel, Rohl cautiously poked his head out and looked around. There wasn't much to be seen except far off to his left, where a faint glow from around a bend turned the otherwise gray rocks to a dirty burnt umber. That would be the guards and their torches. Before he could do anything else, he'd have to get them out of the way.

Tiptoeing silently forward, he peeked around the corner to see what he was up against, then almost snorted in derisive disbelief. There were two figures there, sitting on low stools a short distance away from the door that must lead to their prisoners. One of them – a muscular man with a thick neck and thinning hair – was leaning back against the wall, his head lolling to one side. His mouth hung open and a thin rivulet of drool ran down his chin. The buffoon was asleep!

His partner was a woman with unkempt, coal black hair that appeared to have only a passing acquaintance with a brush – or with gravity, for that matter. It stuck out from her head at all angles, like the burrs of a thistle. As Rohl watched, her head began to slowly tilt forward. Further and further it went until, like a boulder going over a cliff, it suddenly dropped. Her chin nearly bounced off her chest as the sudden movement startled her back to wakefulness. She shot a dirty look at the man beside her, as though her lapse had somehow been his fault. If she'd been about to say something to wake him, though, it was lost in the gaping yawn that immediately gripped her. Once it had passed, her eyes were already halfway closed again.

 _Some guards_ , Rohl thought scornfully. _Better for me, though. Wits'll be even duller than usual, and that's saying something._

He looked past the two inept guards to the door they were so ineptly guarding. There didn't appear to be any lock that he could see. That was good, since it meant he wouldn't have to try to pick the keys out of anybody's pockets. There was, however, a sturdy wooden beam that slotted through metal brackets on both the door and the wall to either side. Hmm. Undoubtedly, that wouldn't be a problem for a full-grown human man to lift out of the way. It might prove to be something of an issue for a short stone troll, though, even if he was considered pretty strong for one of his people.

Pulling his head back out of sight, Rohl considered his options. He quickly discarded the ludicrous idea of a direct attack. It was tempting to just wait until both worthless watchers had fallen asleep, and it didn't seem like it'd be a very long wait, either. But he couldn't see how he could possibly lift that beam off the door without making way more noise than even these two oafs would likely sleep through. No, he needed them to leave. They wouldn't have to be gone for long. He'd only need time enough to get that door open, and then he and the two prisoners inside would be able to make a run for it.

And so, with that idea in mind, Rohl settled upon a plan and immediately put it into motion.

"Hey, you two!" he called out, cupping his hands around his mouth to help magnify his voice. There was the satisfying sound of someone nearly falling off their stool. "Milda wants to see you. Right now!"

"Wha' for?" came the woman's sleepy voice.

"I don't know, do I?" Rohl replied. "Bad enough getting woken up this time of night to come fetch your sorry backsides. I'll be hanged if I'm going to waste time asking questions. The sooner I'm done, the sooner I'm back in my bed."

"But we're supposed to be watching the prisoners," said the man, who sounded at least as groggy as the woman. "Who's gonna watch them if we ain't here? You?"

"Milda didn't say nothing about that, and I wasn't about to volunteer. She just said she wanted to talk to you two lazy bums right away, and she didn't feel like stumbling down here in the middle of the night. That's what the rest of us are for. I guess she figures the prisoners can keep on their own for a while until you get back."

"I dunno," drawled the woman. "She told us that we wasn't supposed to leave this spot for any reason, not 'til we was relieved."

"Fine then! I'll just go back and tell her that you were both too busy sleeping through her old orders to follow her new ones. I'm sure she'll love that. Haven't had an excuse for a good whipping around here in years. Ought to be entertaining for the rest of us, too. I'll be sure to put down a bet on which of you two will soil yourself first." With that, he turned back up the passage and, exaggerating his steps so much that he was practically hopping from one foot to the next, made quite sure they would be able to hear the sound of his retreat.

"Hey! Hey, wait just a minute," the woman called after him.

"Yeah, we're coming, we're coming," said the man. Then, more quietly, he mumbled, "Ain't been whipped since that time Ma caught me behind the shed with that pig. Don't wanna go through that again. Nope. No, sir."

Grinning, Rohl quickly curled himself up into a ball and rolled to the side of the passage, where he looked no different from any of the other rocks that littered the tunnels. He heard the sound of two pairs of feet pound past him and, peeking out, caught a glimpse of torchlight fading out of sight around the next twisting bend.

Springing up, he hurried back in the other direction. Grabbing one of the stools as he went, he dragged it across the floor and dropped it just to one side of the door. Clambering up onto the little wooden platform, he found that he was just tall enough to be able to wedge his shoulder beneath the end of the crossbeam. Hoping that leverage and luck were both in a friendly mood, he set his feet and, with a prolonged grunt of effort, heaved upward.

Slowly, the beam rose off the nearest bracket. _A little higher,_ he thought. _Just a little higher._ If trolls could perspire, he would soon have been sweating with the effort, not to mention with worry that the guards might return at any moment. Finally, he had reached his full extent, his arms raised as high as they could go. Still, the plank stubbornly remained within the far bracket on the other side of the door. Rohl was starting to tremble with the effort of holding up the heavy beam. He didn't think he'd be able to keep it up much longer.

Suddenly, physics took over. The beam slipped a little, sliding perhaps a centimeter through the brackets. It slipped again. With what strength he still had, Rohl curled his fingers around the end and shoved as hard as he could. The crossbar jumped away from him… then fell back flat across the metal support bands.

Rohl was just about to let loose with a string of impolite trollish when the bar began to move again. The end closest to him started to rise up. The far end dropped. Then, almost in slow motion, the beam overbalanced. Pivoting around the far brace, it half flipped, half slid off its mounts. Tumbling to the floor, it landed with a bang and a thud that echoed off the walls and seemed to repeat up and down the passage for an eternity.

Screwing up his eyes in a grimace at the racket, Rohl held his breath and waited for the sound of footsteps running back to investigate. Many excruciatingly long seconds passed. No one came. He opened his eyes, looked down, and groaned.

The beam had landed right in front of the door. And as sore as his arms felt at that moment, he didn't think he had the strength left to pull it out of the way.

"Hey, you," he called out to the room beyond. "The big one. This crossbar isn't exactly the lightest thing in the world. Think you could help a bit?"

• • •

It only took a moment for Kristoff to recover from his surprise and realize what the source of that raucous noise must have been. Then he hurried over and, setting his shoulder to the door, pushed. It swung open with additional scraping sounds as the thick wooden beam was dragged across the rough and uneven floor. Flickering light poured into the little room. The troll followed shortly thereafter.

Rohl both was and wasn't what they'd expected. In general size and form, he matched the various members of Kristoff's extended family well enough. Yet back-lit by the torches from the passage, he looked strangely misshapen, almost as if he had a hunchback of some sort.

"Come on," he said, gesturing at Kristoff. "Get down here and let me get those ropes off you."

That was when the trick of the light became clear. As they watched, the troll reached over his shoulder and unslung a dark gray pack off his back. Rummaging around within it, he quickly pulled out a thin sliver of what looked to be clear crystal. He repeated his gesture impatiently. "Hurry up. There's no telling how soon those dunderheads may come back."

As Kristoff turned around and dropped awkwardly onto his haunches, the troll muttered quietly to himself. "Honestly. And they say rocks are dense."

Kristoff felt the pull on his bindings as the sharp edge of the shard sawed back and forth across them. In a remarkably short time, the ropes fell away. Doing his best to ignore his badly cramped muscles, he then scrambled over to where Elsa lay and began picking away at the knot that bound her ankles together. Rohl and his crystal knife set to work on the cords around her arms and wrists. After making short work of those, he bumped Kristoff out of the way and, ignoring the stubborn knot, quickly finished the business of cutting the prisoners free.

"Now, what say we get out of here?"

Neither human had any argument with that proposal, though it wasn't quite as easy as they would have liked. Elsa's legs, having been tied up for so long, were stiff and uncooperative. Kristoff had to help her to her feet, and he continued to support her – all but carry her, really – as they made their way out of their prison cell as quickly as they could manage.

In the light of the one torch that had been left in its bracket, they finally got their first really good look at the troll. Even recognizing his pack for what it was, though, there were other things about him that struck Kristoff as peculiar. For one, he wasn't clothed in the mossy green fabric that the southern trolls all seemed to prefer. Instead, he was wearing a tunic of what looked almost like shaggy brown fur.

There was also the fact that he happened to be completely bald.

All the trolls that Kristoff knew had grass-like hair sprouting out of the tops of their heads. It started off small and sparse when they were young, but like a well-tended lawn, it grew steadily thicker and longer with age. Yet even though this troll was clearly a full-grown adult, his crown was every bit as bare as his bulbous nose.

They weren't given much time to dwell on these facts, though. The troll immediately took off down the tunnel, leading them away from the old storeroom at a pace that Elsa found difficult to maintain at first, while she continued to work feeling back into her legs. It didn't help that they soon moved beyond the reach of the torchlight, either. Fortunately, they didn't have to stumble around through utter darkness. Their guide had dropped his knife back into his pack and pulled out a much larger crystal that was glowing a deep red-orange. At least that gave them light enough to see where they were placing their feet.

"Well now," said the troll once he apparently felt they'd put enough distance between them and anybody else who might hear, "I've given you my name. Didn't catch yours. Seems like that'd only be a fair trade for breaking you out back there."

"I'm Kristoff, and this is Elsa," Kristoff replied distractedly. He was trying to keep track of every turn and side passage they were taking, but even his keen sense of direction was being stretched to its limit. Rohl appeared to adhere to the school of thought that said the best way to shake off possible pursuit was to avoid anything even remotely resembling a straight line. That the myriad tunnels let him indulge that instinct so readily certainly seemed to prove the old robber woman's (Milda's?) claims about just how easy it would be to get thoroughly lost in them.

"And thank you for helping us escape," said Elsa, covering for Kristoff's lack of proper etiquette. "We're deeply in your debt." By this time, she was no longer leaning on Kristoff for support, though her gait was still a touch stiff. Looking around at the rocky walls, she asked, "Do you live in these tunnels?"

"No, of course not," replied Rohl, clearly finding the idea distasteful. "Nah, my clan's got itself a lovely little grotto right beside a hot spring. Helps keep us nice and warm when the weather gets bad, which it does a lot this far north. Been worse than normal this year, though. Looking forward to getting back and taking a good, long soak, I'll tell you that right now."

"Well, I'm hoping one of these tunnels leads to it soon," Kristoff grumbled as he banged his head against a particularly low bit of ceiling.

"Not exactly," Rohl chuckled. "Home is a good three days' hike from here."

At these words, Kristoff came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the passage. "Three days? Trolls never travel that far from home!"

Rohl turned around and blinked up at him as though he'd just said that grass was never green. "What kind of trolls have you been living with? If you don't send out scouts to explore, how are you going to find anything? How are you going to know when trouble's approaching? How do you find the best and brightest crystals?"

He hefted the glowing jewel in his hand. "That's why I keep coming back to these caves. Those bandits are annoying to be sure, but they're either too dumb, too lazy, or too scared to have explored more than the few chambers they use. Down deep in the dark, though..." He whistled. "You should see some of the things I've found in here. Like this beaut, for instance. Biggest fire crystal I've ever come across."

Kristoff's jaw fell open. "That's a fire crystal?" He dropped down on one knee to get a closer look. "I've never seen one that big! Usually, they aren't much larger than my thumb."

"I know, right?" Rohl beamed proudly. "Most of what I find, I pass out to my relatives, but this one's just too darn useful to give away. Oh, but you should see the water crystals I brought back from my last expedition. Once we get home, I'll get my girl to show you the one she has. You've never seen one so perfectly smooth and round, let me tell you."

"Home?" Elsa interrupted. "We can't leave yet. Certainly not to travel that far away, at least."

"What, would you rather go back to where I found you?" asked Rohl drolly.

"No, she's right," Kristoff agreed, and he stood, though his gaze continued to linger on the oversized fire crystal for a moment longer. Then he seemed to shake himself out of the trance and met Rohl's eyes instead. "The robbers captured another friend of ours. We're not going anywhere until we find him and set him free, too."

Rohl looked back and forth between the two of them, then frowned darkly. "Geez, when you get into trouble, you don't do half measures, do you? Why didn't they put this friend of yours in there with you, then? Oh, wait, let me guess. He was the one who gave them the most trouble when they ambushed you, so they figured they needed to keep him under closer watch. Probably sent you two off as leverage to help keep him under control. 'Do as we say or your friends get it' sort of thing, right?"

"Not exactly." Kristoff reached up and tousled his own hair in an embarrassed sort of way. "You see, his name's Sven, and he's a reindeer."

"A rein-… You can't be serious. You want to go back and risk your necks for a reindeer?"

This time, it was Kristoff's turn to scowl. "He's more than just a reindeer; he's my friend. We grew up together. Sven's saved my life more times than I care to count. What kind of friend would I be if I wasn't ready to try to do the same for him?"

"Look, friend. I may not think very much about the brains of most of those idiots back there, but when there are that many of them, they don't need a lot of smarts to cause a whole lot of trouble. In fact, when it comes to starting a fight, a bit of stupidity is usually considered helpful. Milda might not be as mean as she acts, but plenty of her boys are. They've probably figured out you're missing by now, and you can be sure they won't be too happy about that. If you show up there again, don't expect to get as warm a welcome as you did the last time."

"Fine. Then you don't have to come with us. Besides, you've done more than enough already. Just tell us how to get back there, and we'll find Sven on our own. Then we'll try to figure out how to get out of this place without getting into even deeper trouble."

Rohl ran a stubby-fingered hand over his broad face. "You don't even have a clue where they're keeping him, do you?"

"No, but I'm sure we'll..."

"There's one chamber that they like to use as a stable from time to time, whenever they manage to nab a horse or something from one of their little capers. Broad entrance. Easy to get the animals in and out. Odds are, that's where they'll be keeping your reindeer pal."

"Oh! Well then, if you can just tell us how to find it..."

But Rohl shook his head. "Even if I drew you a map, you'd still never make your way there without taking a wrong turn somewhere. After that, you'd probably never see the outside of these tunnels again." He heaved an exasperated sigh. Then he threw up his hands. "Alright, alright. Fine! I'll help rescue this reindeer of yours, too. Just tell me one thing, right now: that's the last of you, right?"

They both nodded.

Still shaking his head as though he couldn't believe what he'd managed to get himself into, Rohl turned and set off, beckoning back over his shoulder for them to follow. "Come on, then. Best get this over with before I come to my senses."

Elsa and Kristoff traded quick looks. "After you, Your Majesty," he said, the words accompanied by a sweeping gesture that took in Rohl's wake. Looking a bit nervous, Elsa set off after the troll. Kristoff brought up the rear.

As they moved off, Elsa became little more than a dark silhouette to Kristoff, the light of the fire crystal merely burnishing the edges of her outline. Yet even that was enough for his eyes to be drawn down to her hands where they swung beside her. It was a smaller movement that had attracted his attention, though. Her hands were moving constantly, the fingers flexing and floating through a complicated series of fluid motions that he'd come to recognize all too well.

Yet despite their frenetic dance, there was not the slightest hint of blue-white sparkle along their edges to break up the deep, blood red glow that illuminated their way.


	26. Missing Pieces

"Where are the guards?"

Kristoff, Elsa and Rohl peered out from behind a scraggly tangle of snow-covered juniper bushes. Several dozen meters away, a wide opening gaped at the base of the rocky cliff. It was, Rohl had assured them, the entrance to the cavern where the robbers most often housed any beasts of burden they were lucky enough to have absconded with on one of their raids. Since most horses, oxen, and other four-legged animals did not do well in the narrow tunnels that wormed through the stone, this particular chamber had been the best choice for converting into some approximation of a stable.

After having spent too much time in those tunnels himself, Kristoff was glad to be out in the open air again. He would, however, have preferred it if they'd been sitting around a roaring fire, or if they at least had a bit more shelter from the bitter cold. By his best guess, first light was probably two hours away, and without the sun to provide a modicum of warmth, he could only hope that his shivering wouldn't become too pronounced. Whatever might happen next, he certainly didn't need that distraction getting in the way.

"They probably have Sven tethered in there," he said in response to Elsa's question, "so maybe they figure they don't need to spare anyone to keep watch over him."

"Yes, but they have to have realized by now that we've escaped, and from what you said, Milda was pretty sure we wouldn't leave without him. You'd think she'd send somebody to stand guard, just in case."

"As far as she knew, we didn't have the slightest idea where they were keeping him. She might have figured that we'd never even get this far. If we hadn't had Rohl's help, she would have been right, too."

Elsa frowned. Crouching down beside him, she had wrapped her arms tightly across her own chest. Even without access to her powers, she still appeared to be unaffected by the cold, so Kristoff knew she wasn't just attempting to keep herself warm. Instead, he recognized the posture as one of her typical expressions of nervous anxiety. Given their circumstances, he couldn't exactly blame her.

"I don't like it," she said at last. "It seems too easy."

"What's wrong with easy?" he asked hopefully. "Couldn't it just be that, after the string of incredibly bad luck we've had lately, we're finally about due for something to go right for a change?"

Rohl snorted. "I can see that she's the brains of the outfit."

"Nice," grumbled Kristoff. "As if I don't get enough sass from Sven."

The troll shot him a confused look. "I thought he was a reindeer."

"Don't ask," interjected Elsa. "At least not until we're all far away from this place. And before that can happen, we're going to need a plan."

"At the risk of stating the obvious," said Kristoff, "we don't exactly have a lot to work with here. It's just the three of us. We have no weapons, unless you want to count Rohl's knife, and we don't have a lot of time either. Once daybreak comes, it's going to get a lot harder to sneak around without being seen."

"We can always go back into the caves," Elsa pointed out. "With Rohl's help, we could hide out there until the coast was clear again, and then..."

"And by then, they might have changed their minds about guarding Sven. Or they might have moved him somewhere else entirely."

"But we don't even know for certain that he's there now! They might have moved him before we even got here. For all we know, there could be a dozen robbers hiding inside there instead, just waiting to recapture us the minute we go in."

"Alright, fine. So the first step of whatever your plan is has to be to figure out who or what is inside that cave. How do you propose we do that, short of actually going over there and sticking our heads inside to look?"

That gave Elsa pause. While she could see any number of problems rearing up before them, she was painfully short on solutions for any of them. It felt like she was trying to win a game of chess with only a queen, a knight, and one small pawn, while her opponent still had all their pieces on the board.

The thought briefly flashed through her head that she might perhaps create a miniature snow person who could sneak over to the entrance and scout out the situation for them. After all, they'd be perfectly camouflaged against the rest of the snow on the ground. But then, she just as quickly remembered that she still couldn't access her magic. If only she could, then nearly everything would become so much simpler.

It occurred to her that this was probably the first time in her entire life that she'd ever actually harbored such a thought.

With that avenue denied to her, however, she began to cast about, turning her eyes this way and that in the hope that she might see something to serve as inspiration.

"Um, where's Rohl?"

Kristoff followed Elsa's gaze down to the spot where the troll had been standing mere seconds earlier. Sure enough, he wasn't there. In his place was a set of tracks that wandered out from behind the concealing shrubbery. Unusual tracks they were, too. They started out as four-toed footprints that abruptly changed into a single, broader indentation. Then there was a deep depression in the snow, followed by more traces marking out footsteps and silent rolling. The trail led all the way to the cave's entrance where a large, white snowball now sat. It had not been there a short while ago.

"Oh, no," moaned Kristoff.

"Rohl!" Elsa called out in a loud whisper that she hoped would carry exactly to the spot where the troll had come to a stop and not one inch further. "Rohl, don't!"

A gray head poked up from one side of the snowball, but it didn't look back at their hiding place. Instead, it stretched forward as far as its short neck would allow and peeked around the edge of the stone into the dark opening. Kristoff and Elsa both held their breath and strained to hear the telltale sound of watchful sentries who'd just spotted an intruder. All that reached their ears, though, was the sigh of the wind and the thumping of their own hearts.

They watched as a pair each of arms and legs unfurled from beneath the white ball that was Rohl. Then he stood and, with a shake and a shimmy to dislodge the snow caked to his back, tiptoed through the entrance and disappeared into the blackness beyond.

"I hope he knows what he's doing," Kristoff said, even as his voice betrayed exactly how slim a hope it really was.

"Well, he knows this place and these people better than we do," offered Elsa, though she sounded only slightly more optimistic. "The way he talked, he's been coming to these tunnels to hunt crystals for quite a long time, and he's managed to not get caught yet, right?"

"Yeah, by avoiding the robbers, not by walking right into one of their hiding places."

In that moment, Elsa felt Anna's absence like a sudden sharp stab of pain. Kristoff wasn't nearly as jaded as he liked to pretend to be, but his life had definitely left him with what he would undoubtedly consider "realistic" expectations. Perhaps that's why he and Anna fit so well together. Much like Elsa's wariness and her sister's recklessness had each helped balance the other out when they were younger, so too did Kristoff's cynical streak and Anna's overabundant optimism.

On this journey, though, neither she nor Kristoff had ever been fully able to shake their shared sense that it was only a matter of time before the next something went wrong. Yes, they had both taken turns trying to play the positive thinker, but neither of them really had a tremendous amount of experience in the role. So in the end, they all too often wound up lobbing problems back and forth at each other, even if some of those problems ended up taking the form of problems with the other person's problems.

If Anna had been there, right at that moment, Elsa knew that she would have been overflowing with confidence that everything would turn out just fine. There would have been absolutely no doubt in her sister's mind that they'd be able to rescue Sven, avoid the robbers, make their escape, and somehow find their way to whatever passed for civilization in these parts before their lack of provisions proved fatal. She wouldn't have been worried about Rohl's little gambit. She would have been cheering him on.

 _No,_ Elsa corrected herself. _She'd have been running out there right behind him._ Somehow, that thought managed to lift her spirits a little. She almost smiled.

That bit of buoyancy lasted for maybe two minutes, by the end of which, Rohl had yet to reappear. "How big can this cave be?" Kristoff asked of no one in particular. Elsa had no answer, though as the third and fourth minutes slipped past, the hollow feeling that was opening up in her stomach seemed large enough for an entire village of trolls to get lost in.

"Do you think something's happened to him?"

Kristoff eyed the opening darkly while appearing to give the question inordinate consideration. "Let's give him one more minute," he said at last.

"And if he's still not back by then?"

"Then I don't suppose we'll have much choice. We can't just leave him. He helped us to escape once, so I guess it'll be our chance to return the favor."

"But we couldn't even figure out how we were going to rescue Sven. How can we possibly hope to rescue them both?"

"Yeah, well… I'm open to suggestions on that part. We've got about sixty seconds to come up with something."

In hushed voices, they hurriedly debated and summarily discarded one terrible plan after another. Shockingly, having their already limited resources depleted by about a third did nothing to simplify matters. Considerably more than their allotted minute had passed before an exasperated Elsa finally voiced the conclusion that she'd feared they would be forced to face from the start.

"Well then, it looks like we only have one option, doesn't it? I guess we're going to have to do this the Anna way."

"Now hold on," Kristoff protested. "Wait just a minute!"

"We already did," Elsa replied as she pushed herself to her feet. She took a deep breath and, before Kristoff could recover from his shock and make a move to stop her, she strode boldly around the juniper bush and headed straight for the mouth of the cave.

Kristoff stared dumbly after her for a moment. Then, not particularly wanting to be left alone trying come up with a plan to rescue three of his friends, he pushed his way through a gap in the shrubbery and stalked off after her, grumbling as he went.

"'Find yourself a nice girl,' Bulda said. 'Settle down and raise a family,' she said. 'It'll make your life happier,' she said. Funny how 'happy' and 'short' both sound so much alike in trollish."

He caught up to Elsa when they were about halfway across. Grabbing her by the arm, he turned her to face him.

"Let go! Kristoff, we don't have any other choice!"

"I know. But if we're going to do this, then I'm going in first."

"That's very sweet of you, but this is no time to be worrying about chivalry."

"Who said anything about chivalry? Look, one of us has already taken two blows to the head recently. If we walk in there and somebody decides to come at us swinging, then I'd rather be the one to take the hit. I've got a thick skull. It sort of comes with the territory when all your childhood playmates were made of stone. Okay?"

Elsa glared at him, her lips pursed. Eventually, though, she nodded. "Alright, fine. But I'm going to be right behind you."

"Wouldn't have it any other way." Releasing her arm, he stepped past her and, steeling himself, crossed the remaining distance to the cave.

He had expected to be looking in upon an inky blackness in which absolutely anything might be hiding. Therefore, his first reaction was one of relief. From the vicinity of what he took to be the chamber's far wall, there came the muted but unmistakable glow of Rohl's fire crystal. His second reaction was irritation bordering on anger. What on earth had the troll been doing in here this entire time, keeping them waiting and worrying outside without any word or sign?

His next two responses followed in quick succession: confusion, as he realized that the crystal was being held too high off the ground for a troll, even one reaching up as far as he possibly could; then dread as it dawned on him that the fingers that were wrapped around the gem were too long, too thin, and too numerous to belong to a troll's hand. Those same fingers moved, loosening their grip and allowing more of the reddish light to spill out from between them. The scene that was revealed put an end to Kristoff's shifting emotions, cementing them instead into a state of high alarm.

Milda, the old robber woman, sat with the crystal in one hand and her knife in the other. The tip of the upturned blade could not be seen, lost as it was in the shaggy fur below Sven's neck. Only with a great deal of effort was Kristoff able to drag his eyes away from the polished steel to glower at Milda's lined and weathered face. She returned his scowl with one of her own.

"Sven!" he heard Elsa exclaim as she came to stand alongside him. Then, "Oh, no. Rohl!"

His eyes darted around, searching for what had become of their newest ally. It took an embarrassingly long time before a flicker of movement finally drew his eyes downward, and he saw at last just what Elsa had seen. He had thought that the old woman was simply sitting upon a large stone jutting up from the floor of the cave. Now he realized that it wasn't a stone at all. It was Rohl.

"You two really should come in from the cold," Milda said in a tone that was little warmer than the snow outside. "In fact, I insist." And, to emphasize their lack of choice in the matter, she twisted the knife so that its blade flared red with reflected light.

As he walked forward with Elsa at his side, Kristoff attempted to surreptitiously peer into the dark recesses of the cave, most of which still remained untouched by the single source of light. He must not have been as subtle about it as he'd intended to be, for Milda snorted derisively and then said, "It's just the four of us. Five if you count the reindeer. I didn't really figure that I'd need any help just to deal with the two of you. Course, I didn't know about this one, did I? Not that he proved much of a problem either, but it explains how you got out, at least."

"Well, you've got us back again," said Kristoff, "so why don't you just let the troll go? We're the ones who are worth something to you, not him. Keep us, set him free, and you're right back where you started."

Milda shifted her weight, and a few muffled noises escaped from beneath her as Rohl attempted to make his displeasure with the situation known. She gazed critically at Kristoff, her head tilted a little to one side as she considered his offer. Then she glanced over at Elsa, and when she spoke, it was clear that she was addressing them both.

"You appear to be forgetting my profession," she said. "I'm not much of a giver. In fact, I prefer to take just about everything... except orders. So if you expect me to let my newest piece of furniture go, I have to ask: What's in it for me?"

It was Elsa who answered this time. "You've already taken everything we had. We don't have anything left that we can give you."

Clucking her tongue, Milda shook her head. "I'm afraid you're quite wrong about that, my dear."

Kristoff reached out and, with one arm, pulled Elsa protectively behind him. "No. I'm not going to let you hurt her again."

"What, you think I want a pound of flesh, boy?" spat Milda scornfully. "What good would that do me? No, I'm talking about something else entirely."

Elsa, prying Kristoff's fingers off her arm, stepped around him once again. Setting her shoulders and adopting her most severe posture – the one she remembered her father using whenever his patience was nearing its end – she stared back at the old woman with prideful strength. "Then what is it you want from us?"

Milda leaned back, and a slow smile deepened the lines around her mouth and the corners of her eyes. "Nothing too painful, I assure you. As a matter of fact, it really couldn't be simpler. All I want is...

"A story."

Elsa blinked. She looked up at Kristoff, only to find him looking back down at her. Then they both turned to the old woman and, in near perfect unison, repeated, "A story?"

"Not just any story, mind," Milda said with an airy wave of the hand that still held the crystal. "There's one particular tale that I especially want to hear.. Tell me that, and maybe I'll consider letting your friend go."

"What story?"

"I want to hear everything about you, your sister, and the Snow Queen."

Elsa's eyes grew wide for an instant, then narrowed suspiciously. "Why?"

Milda shrugged. "Because I do. Anyway, those are my terms. Now it's your decision to make. Take them or leave them as you will."

Elsa frowned. As she weighed the offer, her eyes darted between Sven, Rohl, and the old woman. Finally deciding that she had no real choice at all, and only slightly more than nothing left to lose, she allowed her shoulders to droop a little in resignation. "It's a very long story," she said wearily.

Milda adjusted her position a second time. "Good thing you aren't going anywhere then, isn't it? Don't worry. I made sure that my lads won't be interrupting us anytime soon. So you might as well start talking before this here hard seat sets my old bones aching. Next thing you know, my arthritis might start acting up, make my hand spasm, and then… Well, things could get a might messy, if you take my meaning."

Kristoff drew in a sharp breath, but otherwise remained silent.

"I'm not even sure where to begin," said Elsa quickly, trying to keep Milda's attention focused on her, "because the story seems to keep growing at both ends, and there are so many missing pieces that we still don't understand. But if you want to have any hope of it all making sense, then I suppose we have to go back two generations, to a brave little girl who went off in search of her lost friend."

• • •

Elsa told the old woman everything: about Kai's kidnapping and Gerda's desperate search, about the two times her mother had then encountered the Snow Queen and what had been done to her at the end of that second visitation, about the mysterious powers with which she herself had been born and the circumstances that had led her to hide them for so long, about how her secret had finally been revealed to the world and everything that Anna had done to save her sister from the fears that had threatened to destroy an entire kingdom.

She might have struggled in starting the tale, but once it got going, it took on a life and a momentum all its own. Indeed, it soon reached the point where Elsa would have found it harder to stop than to just keep plowing forward. It was the first time she – or indeed anyone, as far as she knew – had laid out all the events in their proper order, and in doing so, there almost seemed to be an inevitability that tied them all together. Each sentence she spoke became another link in a chain that stretched back through untold years and bound her family to a fate that none of them had asked for.

She told of the Snow Queen's arrival in Arendelle, of the duel and of Anna's abduction. She recounted the events of their pursuit through the mountains, through Kråkeheim, and through the ever bleaker landscapes they'd encountered as they pushed further north. And then, of course, she came to the ambush in the defile that had led to their capture and imprisonment by Milda's gang of thieves. By the time the tale was drawing to its close, her voice had begun to grow hoarse.

"Then Rohl managed to open the door, cut us loose, and we all ran for it," she explained. "But we refused to leave without Sven, and so we finally convinced Rohl to show us where he thought you might be keeping him, and… and here we are."

A profound silence filled the space that had, up until that moment, been occupied by her words. Elsa couldn't help but think that there might be more import to that quiet than to everything she had just said. She watched Milda carefully, trying to read her eyes by the red light that shone from her hand, but the strange shadows it cast made such a feat nearly impossible. So instead, Elsa did the only other thing she could do. She waited.

"That," the old woman said at last, "was a very good story."

The knife flashed one more time. In a movement so quick that Elsa couldn't believe Milda managed to not lacerate herself, the blade disappeared back into its owner's boot. Then, with a grunt and a groan that was entirely at odds with the deft dexterity she had just displayed, Milda lurched to her feet. Beneath her broad bottom, Rohl rolled over onto his back with a groan of his own. He did not get up right away but chose to simply lie there, spread-eagled and gasping.

"I really… need… a bath," he wheezed. "Or four. Yeah… Four… sounds about… right."

Elsa watched the troll for a few seconds more until she felt reasonably certain that his recent ordeal had not caused lasting harm to anything besides his pride. Then she turned back to Milda and was rather surprised to find the lined face staring back at her with an oddly intense expression. Elsa had the uncomfortable sensation that she was being sized up – weighed and measured by eye like livestock whose farmer was deciding which was ready to fill his family's table that night.

Refusing to let her discomfort show, she once again drew her haughty impatience around herself like a cloak and returned Milda's stare with unconcealed disdain. "Well," she said coldly, "we've kept up our end of the bargain. Will you now honor yours?"

The robber woman gave no apparent sign that she'd even heard the question. Instead, she continued to consider Elsa with that same peculiar severity. The longer she was subjected to it, the more it reminded Elsa of her old nanny whenever she'd caught the two sisters returning from a particularly entertaining bit of mischief. Nanny might not have known what they'd done, but she'd always had a way of knowing that they'd done something. She'd also had a firm belief that, if she simply cornered them and stared at them hard enough and long enough, one of them would eventually give something away. Annoyingly, it had usually worked, too.

Well, Elsa had already told Milda everything there was to tell. She could stare all she liked, but Elsa wasn't sure what more she could possibly be hoping to see.

"You really love your sister, don't you?"

The question took Elsa by surprise. "Of course I do," she answered, her aloofness slipping a little. "We're family."

Milda snorted. "You say that like it means something."

Now Elsa was thoroughly confused. "Not just something. It means everything!"

"It never did to me." Milda crossed her arms and scowled. "Or if it ever did, I can't now remember it.

"I've been a highway robber all my life. My mother was part of a gang of thieves further south, you see. For all I know, I might well have been born into the business. Never knew who my father was. Mother never spoke of him.

"Now I suppose nature must see to it that a child builds herself out of whatever pieces she can find in the world around her. What I found was simple enough. If you wanted something, you took it. If you wanted it badly enough, you fought for it. And to be sure that you got what you wanted, you had to be tougher than whoever it was that had it first. Those were pretty much the only rules we lived by.

"Course, when you're just a little thing surrounded by a bunch of full-grown criminal types, you ain't gonna be tougher than anyone. That wasn't really a problem though, because like I said, we didn't have many rules. So I learned to play dirty. To get what I wanted, I'd bite ears and poke at eyes and kick in all sorts of improper places. Most of the lads thought it was all funny, so long as it wasn't them that I was waling on.

"In a way, I guess you could say that I was a spoiled child. I usually got what I wanted, at least. Mother certainly never stopped me. Not sure if she couldn't or just couldn't be bothered. I only know that her lips spent more time wrapped around a bottle than they ever did pressed against my cheek. So really, the only thing that held me in check was Didrik.

"Didrik fancied himself our leader. Not that he started the gang, mind. Don't think he was even one of the first to join up. But he was the biggest and meanest, and just smart enough to realize that being big and mean meant that he could make others do whatever he wanted them to do. I never dared to pull any of my shenanigans on Didrik. In fact, after the time when he hauled off and cuffed me because the racket from one of my little fights had gotten on his nerves, I tried to always keep an eye on him, and I'd stop if I ever saw his anger getting the better of him. It still managed to sneak up on me a few times though, and I earned myself some nice bruises for my carelessness. Still, he mostly just ignored me. Until that one day...

"We'd just stolen a particularly fine carriage, you see – horses and all. It was one of the biggest hauls we'd made in months. Everybody was drunk on our success, and a few on something a tad stronger. Now I'd gone out on the raid that day too, so I was celebrating with the rest of them when I suddenly saw something in the coach, and I just knew right away that I had to have it for my own.

"So I started doing what I always did when I was determined to get my way: I made a holy terror of myself. And I was in rare form too, probably one of my finest ever. I was vicious, biting and scratching and all. That wasn't what set Didrik off, though. He was too happy with everything else we'd managed to steal. So, as usual, I eventually got what I wanted, and we all headed back home.

"The next day, the men went out hunting, leaving my mother and me behind. Mother, like she did most every morning, took one long drink from her bottle and then fell straight to sleep, leaving me pretty much on my own. That wasn't unusual. I might have been young, but I could look after myself, and I'd pretty well learned exactly how much mischief I could get into while still managing to cover it all up.

"Except that morning, I went too far. And when the men got back, there was no hiding what I'd done, especially from Didrik.

"'Where's the bloody reindeer?' he yelled almost as soon as he walked through the door. We had a reindeer, you see, and it was my job to tend to him. I looked after all the animals, actually. There were the dogs that we kept on watch, who were trained to only bark if strangers tried to sneak up on us. And then there were the hundreds of doves and ravens and crows that had made their home in the old, abandoned castle where we holed up.

"Anyway, the reindeer was gone, and the splendid success of my tantrum the day before had put me in a nicely defiant mood, so I didn't even try to lie about it. 'I let it go,' I told him.

"'You did what?' he roared back. Then he looked around and realized that more was missing than just one old animal. 'And where's your plaything? The one you made such a ruddy scene about yesterday.'

"'I lost it,' I said.

"To this day, I'm not sure what put it in my head to provoke him so. Maybe I thought that I'd finally grown up enough that I could get away with it. Really though, I think I was just exactly old enough to start getting cocky and stupid. I made a mistake… and I paid for it dearly. I knew it the moment he took off his belt.

"I lost count of how many times he whipped me. All I could think about was how much it was hurting. Afterward, there were only two things about those horrible minutes that I remembered clearly. One was the sound of the men's laughter in my ears. It was the exact same laughter as whenever they'd watched me attacking one of their own.

"And the other thing was the way my mother just stood there and watched… and did absolutely nothing to stop it."

Elsa let out a small gasp. Nobody deserved to go through something like that, a young child least of all. Despite everything Milda had put them through, Elsa couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for her and all that she'd had to endure.

As if she could read Elsa's mind, the old woman pierced her with a harsh glare. "I'm not looking for your pity, girl," she said hotly. "Like I said, children build themselves out of the pieces that they're given, and that particular piece made me the woman that I am today.

"After that, I knew that it would only be a matter of time before Didrik found an excuse to do the same thing again, if not worse. Well, I wasn't about to let that happen, so I slunk away into a far corner of the old castle and did my best to stay out of sight until night finally fell. Only then, when I was sure that everyone was asleep, did I creep back out again.

"I might have learned how to get my way by making a lot of noise and ruckus, but I could be quiet as a mouse when I wanted to. That was how I managed to sneak around from room to room and pinch all the things I knew I'd need. And the last room I visited was the one where my mother always slept.

"I didn't need to worry about waking her. I knew that as soon as I saw the bottle beside her bed. Still, I tiptoed over to her and gave her one last kiss on the cheek. Then I took my knife..."

(Elsa's hands flew to her mouth in dreadful anticipation of what was coming next.)

"...and carefully slid it under her pillow. I always slept with my knife under my own pillow, you see. Figured that, when she found it under hers the next morning, she'd at least know that I'd gone off on my own, by my own choice. Seemed to me it was the closest thing to a goodbye that we owed each other. Then on my way out, I slipped hers from its sheath and took it with me instead.

"Maybe she wasn't the best mother, but I've still carried that small bit of her around with me my entire life, so that I'd never forget what I left behind and why.

"With that taken care of, I snuck out to where we'd tethered the horses that had been pulling the carriage we'd stolen. The dogs saw me, but they knew me well and so kept quiet, like they'd been trained to do. I untied one of the horses, climbed up on it, and set off into the night, ready to make my own way in the world.

"Course, having grown up among thieves my entire life and never having had any proper schooling, it turned out there was only one thing I could really do well enough to get by on, and I've been doing it ever since. Only now, I'm the one in charge."

She said this last with a fierce pride that resolutely reinforced her earlier claim that she desired no one's pity. It left Elsa totally unsure what she could possibly say in response. She turned toward Kristoff, but it was clear from his face that he was struggling to find appropriate words as well. Fortunately, they were both spared the need.

Milda glanced at the cave's entrance. "Hmm. Sun'll be coming up soon," she noted matter-of-factly. "You'd best be going before then."

Rohl, who had sat up at some point to better listen to all the storytelling, now looked at both Kristoff and Elsa. He wore a conflicted expression, obviously torn between his own freedom and that of the two humans. They were already more than strangers to him. In fact, he rather liked them both, especially having just heard the story of the bold quest they were on. Even so, he was at a loss to see what he could possibly hope to accomplish even if he did stay behind with them.

"Go on, Rohl," Elsa encouraged him kindly. "You've done more than we could have asked of you. This isn't your concern. We'll… We'll manage somehow."

The troll climbed to his feet, then turned his eyes to Kristoff. The blond man nodded solemnly. "Elsa's right," he said. "You should go home to your family." He then managed a half smile. "Be sure to sing that new verse to them, okay?"

Rohl's mouth opened as if he wanted to say something, but no sound came out, so he closed it. Finally, he just settled on a nod of his own. Still, his short legs failed to move him forward.

"Rohl..."

"Oh, for pity's sake!" Milda gruffed in exasperation. "I meant you'd all better be going! And soon, before my men see you or I change my mind."

All three of the prisoners looked at the woman in surprise. Even Sven's eyes widened as he perked up his ears and lifted his head in response.

Milda shrugged. "What can I say?" she said in a surly fashion. "Never liked bullies, and it sounds like this Snow Queen is even worse than the stories around here tell."

"But… But you..." Kristoff stammered, pointing first at Milda, then at the spot on Elsa's temple where the butt of the woman's weapon had impacted so forcefully. The old woman's face twitched in what might almost have been a wince.

"That was just business," she said. "And self-defense, far as I knew. Like I said before, there've been a few encounters with the Snow Queen in these parts over the years, and none of them ended particularly well. Can you blame me for taking precautions after I saw what you could do? There are plenty, even among the more neighborly folk, who would have just done you in right then and there if they'd found you hurt like that. Probably would've become regular ol' heroes once they'd told the tale, too."

Elsa realized that there very well might be a good bit of truth in the woman's words, but that didn't make it any easier for her to find much room for forgiveness.

Milda cleared her throat. "Before you go," she began, and it was the first time they'd heard her sounding anything other than confident and completely in charge, "I would ask one favor of you."

"A favor?" Kristoff blurted out incredulously. "You can't be serious!"

"Just hear me out," she said with more of her usual acerbity. "When you do, you might be more willing than you think."

"What is it?" Elsa asked.

"Well, you see, I'm not exactly going to be able to hide the fact that you're gone, now am I? And once the lads find out, they're gonna want to know how you managed to get past me to grab your reindeer and make your getaway. And me, I've got a fearsome reputation to keep up. Sometimes, it's the only thing that keeps the wilder ones in line."

"And what do you expect us to do about that?" asked Kristoff, folding his arms across his chest in a gesture of utmost stubbornness.

Milda blew out a breath, scowled, and then answered. "You're gonna have to hit me."

Kristoff, taken aback, immediately dropped his arms back to his sides. "I can't hit a woman!"

"Not you, ya' dunderhead! Her." Milda pointed at Elsa, then had the good grace to look chagrined. "Besides, I figure she owes me one."

"I'm not going to… I can't do that," Elsa protested.

"Sure you can. I saw what you did to my gang back in the pass, remember? The way I figure it, if I show up sporting something like Cort's ice glove, won't nobody question a thing. On the list of things they're afraid of, it won't matter much if magic ranks a bit higher than little old me. So come on. Let me have it!" She lifted her arms a short distance from her sides, her fingers outstretched, and then closed her eyes, clearly inviting an attack.

"I… I can't." _I really can't,_ Elsa thought bitterly to herself.

One of Milda's eyes opened and squinted at her. "Dangnabbit, girl! Now's not the time to lose your backbone. What are you planning to do when you finally catch up to the Snow Queen, anyway? Do you figure if you ask her again nicely, she's just going to give you your sister back? It's like I said: if you want something badly enough, you've got to be ready to fight for it!"

 _When I catch up to the Snow Queen,_ Elsa thought. _More like if we catch up._ They'd lost so much time again because of the attack and their subsequent imprisonment. Who knew how far behind they were now? She couldn't tell. Because of what Milda had done, she was unable to use her magic (a fact which she'd very purposefully left out when she'd retold their story). Because of Milda, Elsa now had absolutely no idea where Anna was or how they were ever going to find her. Because of Milda. Because of Milda.

"What are you waiting for, girl? Come on, already! Stop holding back. Just do it. Just go on and…"

WHAM!

Elsa's fist solidly connected with the side of the old woman's face. There was a force behind it that even she would not have guessed she possessed. Milda's head snapped to one side and she staggered back a step before regaining her balance. One hand came up to gingerly finger the spot where the punch had landed and this time, she didn't hide her wince in the slightest.

"That wasn't exactly what I had in mind," she said sourly, "but I suppose it'll have to do. Maybe if I roll around in the snow a bit, it'll be enough to fool the lot of 'em. Now as for you, you'd all best get going. Take your reindeer and the sled, too. It might not be in the best of shape, but it'll be better than walking. If you hurry, you should be able to get harnessed and on your way before the sun is full up."

All things considered, Elsa couldn't quite bring herself to thank the old woman for granting them their freedom. She was still seething a bit from the remnants of the anger that had powered her blow, though that had been dampened a little by a sense of embarrassment at her decidedly unladylike behavior. But she looked the robber chief squarely in the eye, and Milda looked squarely back. Something passed silently between them then that seemed to serve in place of any spoken words.

"Come on, Rohl," Elsa said with a gesture to the troll. Then she turned and headed toward the exit. Kristoff moved to grab Sven and began to lead him out as well.

The troll took a few steps forward, but then he stopped and looked up at Milda. Clearing his throat, he held out his hand. "My fire crystal, please?"

She looked down at the little figure, then at the gem she still held between her fingers. "No," she said, slowly shaking her head. "No, I think I'll keep this. Might come in handy."

"Wha-? But that's not…" Rohl stammered.

Milda shrugged, then smiled. "I am still a thief, you know."

Rohl raised one finger threateningly before he realized that Elsa, Kristoff, and Sven had already all disappeared outside. Sparing the old robber one last disgusted look, he grudgingly turned and trotted off after his new friends as quickly as his short legs would carry him.

Milda stood there for a while, staring out of the dark cave into the slowly brightening world beyond. At last, she turned and – walking back to a spot in the furthest, mostly deeply shadowed corner – bent down to pick up a half-emptied sack. Reaching inside, she pulled out one of the carrots that she hadn't gotten around to feeding to the reindeer before they'd been interrupted by the troll's intrusion. She took a large bite and then, munching noisily, headed outside to find a good snowdrift with which she might complete the ruse of her attack. Maybe she could even track down a sufficiently impressive icicle that she could say had been used to club her upside the head. Yes, that would help sell it all nicely.

Though she would never admit it out loud, she really did wish the little band of adventurers all the luck she could muster. Heaven knew they were going to need it if they really were determined to take on the Snow Queen. Mostly though, she knew that she was going to miss that reindeer. He'd reminded her of one she had known and loved long ago, and which she'd reluctantly given to another little wanderer to help guide her on her own dangerous quest to free a lost friend…


	27. A Life Without Love

Anna was deeply uncomfortable, and she wasn't entirely sure why.

It wasn't simply that she'd spent far too long in this sled wondering when (or, at this point, if) the interminable journey was ever going to come to an end. That was only part of it, albeit the part that her back and bottom complained about the most. Nor could it entirely be explained by her continued mistrust of this woman who had assaulted and abducted her. Indeed, since they had left Arendelle, the Snow Queen had largely treated her with an unexpected degree of civility.

Oddly enough, Anna actually had a strange suspicion that her current unease was in some way connected to the taciturn mood that had settled upon the Snow Queen herself of late. Though she had rarely been one to start a conversation, her kidnapper had always seemed willing enough to respond to Anna's questions, even if the results rarely provided anything that resembled satisfactory answers. During the last few days, however, that had changed.

Ever since their argument about who had altered Anna's memories, the Snow Queen had turned sullen. Whereas she'd previously seemed singularly unconcerned about anything and everything, confident in herself and in whatever plans she might have made, she was now positively brooding. Initially, that had pleased Anna in a perverse sort of way, for she took it to mean that those selfsame plans had finally gone wrong somehow, and anything that was a setback for the Snow Queen could only be good for everyone else.

Eventually, though, the other woman's silent treatment had begun to wear on the normally garrulous princess. It wasn't a tactic that any of the household staff had ever used on her when she'd been growing up. Even when her old nanny had silently pinned her with that withering stare of hers, it had only been to get her to admit to whatever secret hijinks she'd been up to. Once Anna's own lips had been loosened, Nanny'd never had any shortage of words for the wayward youngster.

In fact, there was only one other person who had ever flatly refused to speak to Anna like this, and she had managed to keep it up for the better part of thirteen years.

 _Three of them pretended I was invisible... literally... for two years!_

The sudden echo of Hans's voice inside her head startled Anna. As a rule, she generally did her best not to think about the youngest member of the Southern Isles' royal family. Her short-lived relationship with him had been, without question, one of the biggest mistakes she'd ever made in her entire life, and one that she had most definitely learned from. They were lessons that she would never forget either, but that didn't mean she particularly wanted to remember the one who'd taught them to her.

That his words had chosen this particular moment to pop into her brain certainly did nothing to ease her disquiet.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Startled out of her reverie, Anna looked down at the seat beside her. Olaf was sitting there, of course, looking back at her with a solicitous expression upon his face. Then his eyes narrowed and his brow lowered, giving him a somewhat pensive appearance. "Actually, I don't have a penny," he said with that all-too-literal earnestness that made him so endearing. "So, um, lump of coal for your thoughts?" He held out one of his buttons on the palm of his twiggy hand.

Anna took the offering, but only to put it back in its proper place on the snowman's chest. "I'm afraid they're not even worth that much," she said with a small smile. "I was just thinking about how quiet it's been."

"Yeah." Olaf looked around at the frozen tundra in which, apart from their sleigh, nothing appeared to be moving. "This place could really use some livening up. It definitely needs a little something. Maybe a marching band, some fireworks. Ooh, how about a bowling alley?"

Anna laughed. "Sounds good to me. We can put it right next to the ice cream shop!"

For what was hardly the first time, Anna thanked whatever graces had seen fit to at least allow Olaf to accompany her on this seemingly endless trek. Conversations with him sometimes had a tendency to become ever-so-slightly strange, but it was worth it to have a companion with whom she could talk about familiar things. It was certainly a small price to pay just for the constant reminder he was to her of the home that awaited their return once this whole mess was finally sorted out.

Because really, when it came right down to it, Olaf was a bit of Elsa that was riding along with her. She had made him, after all, and given him at least some of her memories. Sometimes, Anna had trouble believing that a character as perpetually happy and carefree as Olaf's could have been born from her sister's soul. After all, Elsa always had a tendency to take the weight of the world upon her shoulders and blame herself for every little thing that went wrong. More than once, Anna had wondered if the personality that Elsa had gifted to Olaf hadn't been more wish fulfillment for her sister than anything else. Or maybe it had been a reflection of the burgeoning freedom she'd been feeling that night on the slopes of the North Mountain, when she thought she had left the burden of her responsibilities behind her forever.

But then, Anna would remember Elsa's impish little laugh at the Coronation Ball while she'd watched Anna dancing with the Duke of Weselton. Or the wickedly playful smile that had spread across her face right before she'd sent a swarm of snowballs flying after her sister. Or the happy giggles that had punctuated their early childhood together. Then Anna would realize the bittersweet truth of the matter.

In a very real way, Olaf represented the whimsical free spirit that Elsa might have become had the duties of her station and the fear of her abilities not forced her to hide that part of herself behind a staid and proper facade. That her frolicsome side still managed to slip though the cracks now and then just proved how strong it must be inside her. That it most often seemed to sneak out when she was together with her little sister touched Anna deeply.

"Olaf," she began thoughtfully, "do you remember when you explained to me what love is?"

The snowman nodded. "Yeah, why?"

"Do you remember what it was that you said?"

He nodded again. "Yeah, why?"

"Are you sure that's all that love is?"

"Ye- Oh. Er, um… Maybe? Why?"

Anna leaned back in her seat, tilted her head up toward the sky, and took a moment to collect her thoughts before she spoke again. "When I was younger," she finally said, "I used to get so frustrated with grown ups. It seemed like anytime I asked a really important question, the first thing they would always say was, 'It's complicated.' I hated that. All I wanted was an answer. It seemed perfectly simple to me.

"But then I got older and… I don't know. I finally learned why Elsa had gone into hiding for all those years, why for most of that time she wouldn't even talk to me. And it was complicated. When the castle gates finally opened for the coronation, I nearly got engaged to a man I'd only just met, and who then ended up trying to kill both me and my sister in order to claim the throne of Arendelle for himself. That was complicated, too. Now I've been kidnapped by a woman who met my mother when she was pregnant with my sister, which somehow resulted in Elsa being born with ice powers in the first place. So yeah, complicated. Everything seems to be something more than what I thought it was.

"And yet it seems to me that all of that stuff is still a whole lot simpler than something like love."

Out of the corner of her eye, Anna watched Olaf mulling all this over. "So… love isn't putting someone else's needs before yours?"

"No, no. I'm sure that's part of it. I just… I don't think that can be all of it, you know?" She turned back to her friend as he nodded a third time.

"Nope!" he replied cheerfully.

Anna allowed herself a small sigh. "Well, it's like… Maybe love is also feeling comfortable enough around someone that you can just be yourself. You don't have to pretend to be someone else, someone you're not, just because that's who they expect you to be."

"Ooh, ooh, I get it! You mean like the way I sometimes pretend that I'm a snowman!"

Anna looked at him dubiously. "Olaf, you _are_ a snowman."

"Yeah, but I like to pretend that I'm a snowman on a tropical beach, with the sun on my face and the warm sea breeze in my… er, twigs."

"That's not quite what I had in mind," Anna admitted. "It's more like… Well, you know how Elsa behaves when she's meeting with foreign dignitaries, right? And you know how she behaves when it's just the three of us. It's almost like she's two different people. There's Queen Elsa of Arendelle, and then there's just plain Elsa, my sister. Queen Elsa has to act a certain way because… Well, because she's a queen. But when she's with us, she doesn't have to act at all; she can just be herself. And I think she can only do that because she's finally come to understand that we'll accept her exactly as she is. Because we all love each other."

"Ohhh." A look of understanding spread across Olaf's face. "You mean like how Kristoff always acts like a grumpy sourpuss, even though he's really a grumpy nice guy!"

Confusion briefly flickered across Anna's face before she realized that Olaf must be talking about some friend he had made on one of his forays into town. "Sure," she said with only a touch of uncertainty. "I suppose so."

"Yeah." Olaf was clearly warming to the idea. "Yeah, I guess that might be a part of love, too."

"It might also explain a few other things," Anna added, her voice a bit darker than it had been a moment before. "Like Hans."

"Okay, you lost me again," said Olaf, blinking up at her in confusion.

"It's just that, the entire time he was in Arendelle, I'm not sure Hans was ever being himself, not even once. He was always playing a part, you see. He said and did whatever he thought he had to just to impress or manipulate whomever he was with at the time. Not only that, but he did it so effortlessly! I suppose I could be wrong, but something tells me that acting like that shouldn't have been so easy. At least, not unless he'd had plenty of time to practice. Like, maybe his entire life."

Anna looked down at her lap, only to notice that her fingers had been absentmindedly toying with the fabric at the bottom of her bodice. She immediately let the hem drop and forced her hands to lie flat across the tops of her thighs, but she kept her gaze lowered as she continued speaking. Her words now came out both quieter and slower.

"Hans was the last of thirteen brothers. From what I've learned about the Westergaards since then, I think they probably considered him the least of the family, too. He hinted as much when we were talking on the night of Elsa's coronation. He said he'd been searching his whole life to find his own place. Doesn't that say he must have felt like he didn't have a place back home?

"And all the correspondence we received from the Southern Isles afterward talked about him like he was just some random criminal who needed to be brought to justice. Never once did it seem like they thought of him as family. They didn't come across as ashamed or saddened or even all that surprised. It was just, 'We deeply regret this incident and any damage it may have done to relations between our two kingdoms.' My old geometry textbooks contained more concern and emotion than any of those letters did. So now, I guess I'm just starting to wonder.

"What if Hans got to be so good at pretending to be someone he wasn't because he grew up never having anybody who loved him enough that he could ever feel comfortable being himself around anyone? Not ever!"

With that, the silence that had preceded their conversation once again rushed in to fill the gap between them. Olaf sat there, gazing up at Anna, his mouth hanging open in stupefaction. Anna, for her part, continued to stare down at her hands.

"Can you imagine what that must be like?" she said eventually, her voice even quieter than it had been before. "To go through your entire life believing that you're all alone? That there's nobody in the entire world who really cares about you? That your own family barely even realizes you exist?"

The look on Olaf's face made it plain that he couldn't quite understand why this was upsetting his friend so badly, but he nevertheless reached out a hand to try to comfort her. "Anna..."

"I can." She answered her own question, her voice now barely above a whisper. "For thirteen years, the only family that I had shut me out completely, and I had no idea why. I don't know how many times I thought it must have been something that I'd done wrong. I wondered if I just changed who I was, if I became somebody different, then would that be enough to get Elsa to come out and be my sister again? Except, unlike Hans, I never really learned how to do that. I never figured out how to be anybody other than just me. I tried to be the happiest version of me that I could, and I hoped that would help, but..."

"Anna," Olaf said in a tone that was confused but comforting, "you don't have to be anybody else. You know that, right? We all like you just the way you are. I mean… we love you!"

Anna smiled. "Thanks, Olaf. And yes, I know that now. I guess I'm just saying that maybe I can understand Hans a little better than I'd like to admit. Not that any of it excuses what he tried to do, but... maybe it explains it a little. At least I had five years where I knew what it meant to be loved, so I think I always believed that was still there even though it might have gone into hiding. But if I hadn't had that, then who knows? I probably would have become a very different person. I might even have ended up as cold and heartless as Hans."

"I'm really glad you didn't!" said the snowman. He appeared to have latched on to her smile as his emotional cue, at least more so than the somewhat somber substance of her words. His spirits seemed to rebound at any rate, with his exuberance demonstrating its usual resilience. It was rather like a cork in water. You could weigh it down for a while, but the instant that pressure was removed, it instantly popped back up to the surface. "And I don't think Kristoff would like you nearly as much that way, either."

Alright, that was the second time this unfamiliar name had cropped up during their conversation. Anna was now getting genuinely curious. "Well, I'm always glad to hear that the people approve of what Elsa and I have been trying to do for the kingdom. We might not always be perfect, but we do the best we can. Maybe you ought to invite this friend of yours to the castle when we get back. I'm sure he'd love a tour of the palace. Besides, I think I'd like to meet him for myself. Anybody you think so highly of must be someone worth knowing."

Olaf cocked his head quizzically. "What friend?"

"You know. This Kristoff you keep talking about."

"But Anna… you know Kristoff, too!"

"Really? Did we meet at one of the royal concerts or plays? Because if so, then I have to be honest, there were so many new faces at those that I had trouble keeping track of them all. After all those years hidden behind the castle gates, it's not easy getting to know everyone in Arendelle in just a few short months. Maybe if you described him for me?"

Olaf blinked at her, then began ticking off items on his fingers. "Blond, broad shouldered, kinda tall, smells like reindeer, loves you with all his heart..."

Anna recoiled a little. "On second thought, maybe we should hold off on the castle tour. The last time a man claimed he loved me after having just barely met me, things didn't really work out so well."

"B-but Kristoff already lives in the castle. He's Arendelle's Official Ice Master and Deliverer."

"Really?" Anna replied with a laugh. "Who came up with that title? That's not a real thing."

Olaf glanced anxiously over his shoulder at the Snow Queen, who remained stubbornly deaf to their conversation. So he turned back to Anna and, in a voice whose usual bright buoyancy had again been subsumed beneath deep worry and concern, said, "Anna, you love Kristoff too."

If Anna had considered their conversation to be strange before, it had now charged right past that and truly entered the realm of the surreal. A smile lingered on her lips, the remains of her laugh from a moment earlier, but as far as she was concerned, the humor was quickly draining out of the situation. "Don't be silly," she said. "How could I possibly fall in love with a man I don't even know? Again, I mean."

For several beats, Olaf continued to gaze up into her face, not wanting to believe what he was hearing. When he finally could deny it no longer, however, he rounded on the Snow Queen instead.

"What did you do to Anna?" he demanded.

"Well, first she tried to whisk me away in a giant snow drift," Anna answered scornfully. "Then she had one of her snow people attack me and carry me off. And then, she used ice to bind me into this sled and..."

Without looking back, Olaf plucked off his right arm and, extending it out behind him in his left hand, pressed one of its fingers against Anna's mouth to shush her.

"What did you do?" he asked again.

It looked for a very long time as if the Snow Queen would simply continue to stubbornly ignore her passengers. During that interval, Anna tried to push Olaf's hand away from her mouth, only to have her fingers brusquely swatted and an admonishing finger raised pointedly in front of her face. It then slipped beneath her chin, pushed her open jaw shut again, and went right back to pressing against her closed lips. Olaf's eyes remained fixed upon the Snow Queen throughout.

Finally, the pale woman drew in a long, deep breath, then exhaled slowly. "I am sorry," she said curtly.

"What for?" Anna asked around the twig that was attempting to keep her quiet. "The rudeness, the assault, the kidnapping, the…?"

"Anna," said Olaf, swiveling his head halfway around and speaking to her out of the side of his mouth, "let me take care of this, okay?" Without waiting for an answer, he returned his attention to the Snow Queen.

"What for?" he asked.

The expression on the Snow Queen's face appeared pinched and slightly drawn, as though the words that had formed on her tongue were so unbearably sour that she might be sick if she tried to swallow them unspoken. At the same time, it looked as though the prospect of spitting them out was every bit as unappealing to her. The two possibilities warred with one another for quite some time until it at last appeared that she'd exhausted all hope of finding a third option. So, she grudgingly answered the snowman's question.

"I am sorry for what I did after I learned that it was not Elsa who had modified her sister's memories."

At this point, more than a little tired of the taste of bark on her lips, Anna grabbed hold of Olaf's arm and pulled it forcefully away from her mouth. In fact, she was sufficiently forceful (and Olaf's grip sufficiently strong) that she accidentally pulled his left arm right out of its socket. On a better day, she would immediately have apologized for such a discourtesy.

This was definitely not one of her better days.

"After? After! What about before? What about when you rummaged around inside my head looking for the truth, all because you didn't want to believe me when I told you it wasn't her in the first place? You aren't sorry about that, but you're sorry because you lost your temper afterward? Or are you sorry because you let yourself display a moment of weakness in front of me? Because I caught a glimpse of you frightened and worried? Is that what you're so sorry about?"

"Anna, no," Olaf pleaded. "You… you don't understand." He attempted to make a restraining gesture with both hands, but that mostly resulted in his left arm clattering onto the seat between him and Anna.

"What's there to understand?" she asked hotly. It seemed to her that she'd found the source of her discomfort at last. Her frustration and indignation with the Snow Queen had been building up within her ever since she'd been whisked away from Arendelle, but she had allowed herself to vent them both every now and then through a few pointed barbs and jibes. What she hadn't allowed out, however, was the sheer fury that had been growing steadily alongside them. There had only been a few rare times in her life when she had been this fiercely angry with anyone, and the last person who had pushed her so far had received a solid punch in his all-too-pretty face as a reward for his efforts. She barely even realized that the fingers of her empty hand had once again curled into a fist entirely of their own accord.

"I understand that she assaulted my mother!" Anna raged. "I understand that she twisted my sister's life entirely on some crazy whim! I understand that she hurt Colonel Fritz, destroyed Polla, and would have done a lot more damage if Elsa hadn't managed to stop her! I understand that she wants to tear Elsa and me apart forever! I understand that she cares more about her animal friends than about any person she's ever met! I understand that..."

"That is untrue." Though the Snow Queen's voice was quieter than Anna's, it somehow managed to make itself heard all the same.

Anna's words and thoughts both stumbled clumsily to a halt. "What? Which part isn't true?"

"The arrogance that would presume to know something of my heart. Just because I may not care for the same people that you do does not mean I have never cared for anyone."

"Well, it must have been a long time ago then, because for the way you talk about people and treat them now, you act like you've forgotten what it means to care."

"In that, you are half right," the Snow Queen said in what was almost a sigh. "It was indeed a very long time ago. But I can assure you, I have forgotten nothing."

Throughout this exchange, Olaf had been struggling to convince the arm that Anna wasn't holding to balance itself on its fingertips so that he could push the shoulder end back into place on his trunk. He'd only just managed to succeeded in this task, and the first thing he did now that he had full control of that hand again was to snatch his right arm out of Anna's grip and firmly screw it back where it belonged.

"Which brings us," he said more forcefully than was usually his wont, "back to my question. What did you do to Anna?"

Anna, who'd been about to sling another rejoinder back at the Snow Queen, instead did a double take at the snowman's question. "What does that have to do with anything?" she asked.

Then a sudden flash of understanding hit her, and it did so with about as much force as when she had punched Hans. _I have forgotten nothing._ Those had been the words of the woman who'd been so thoroughly convinced that Elsa, upon whom she had bestowed her own powers, had been the one to modify Anna's memories. She had, in fact, jumped to that conclusion early on with little to no evidence to support such a guess. And when she had, Anna had come to a conclusion of her own – one that had frightened her more than any previous display of snow magic had managed to do.

"You changed my memories," she breathed, her eyes growing wide with shock and fear.

The Snow Queen's face might well have turned to stone, so little emotion did it betray. Almost as if to compensate, Olaf's expressive features put on a pageant of confusion, worry, guilt, sadness, and grief. It was a display Anna could not help but notice.

"You knew?" she asked, the pain of betrayal creeping into her voice. "You knew, and you didn't say anything?"

"Well, I… I…"

"What?" Anna demanded, tears fighting with bitter anger in her voice. "What did she change? What did she take from me?" But the look of abject misery on the snowman's face sparked a twinge of guilt inside of her. It was just enough to keep her from venting the rest of her ire upon him, though not because it did anything to lessen her anger. Rather, it reminded her that she ought to be unleashing it all upon the true cause of her pain.

"Did you decide it wasn't enough just to take Elsa away from Arendelle forever?" she lashed out at the Snow Queen. "Did you think that, if you changed my memories of her, you'd change the way I felt about her, too? That you could make me forget everything she sacrificed for me? That if you rewrote enough of my life, somehow I'd suddenly be willing to just let her go? Well, you failed! It didn't work! I still remember, and I still love her. She's the only family I have. And I'm going to fight to make sure that you never, _ever_ get your hands on my sister!"

"As I said," the Snow Queen responded in her most infuriatingly unflappable voice, "I regret what I did. I allowed my emotions to get the better of me. In my disappointment and anger, I acted without thinking. Such vindictive behavior serves no useful purpose."

"That's what you're sorry about?" Anna asked in disbelief. "That it served no purpose? Not that you forced yourself into my head and tried to take away my memories! And to think there were a couple of times there where I almost let myself believe you might not be so bad after all. But you're just like Hans! You only care about yourself and the things that you want. Everybody else is either a tool you can use or an obstacle in your way."

Suddenly, Olaf's head popped up directly between Anna and the Snow Queen. "If I can just interrupt for one moment," he said politely. Taking advantage of Anna's momentary surprise, his spindly arms turned his head to face the Snow Queen, who looked back at him with implacable indifference. Not allowing that to deter him in the slightest, Olaf asked one simple question.

"Can you put Anna's memories back to the way they were?"

Anna's mouth fell open, dumbfounded. In her anger and indignation, that most obvious of ideas hadn't even occurred to her. Peering around Olaf's head, she watched the Snow Queen, who was still staring expressionlessly at the snowman. Anna desperately wanted to prompt her, nudge her, do something to get the enigmatic woman to cough up an answer. All remained silent, though, waiting expectantly for whatever would happen next.

"Yes."

Olaf's head spun around so fast, he nearly lost his grip on it. "See, Anna? It's all going to be okay! She said she was sorry, and she can undo what she did, and once she does, everything will be back to normal again. It was all just a mistake, a misunderstanding. That's not so bad, right? Everybody makes mistakes now and then."

Anna looked back at Olaf, then past him at the Snow Queen. The expression on the princess's face was equal parts hopeful and wary. "Really?" she asked, not quite ready to believe just yet. "You can really undo what you did to my memories?"

Her response was a single, solemn nod.

"And how do I know that I can trust you?"

"Have I ever once told you a lie?"

"How would I know? Would I even remember if you did?"

The Snow Queen shrugged.

Anna bit her lip in indecision. What should she do? Did she dare let this woman inside her head again? She still couldn't bring herself to trust her in the slightest. Yet if she didn't agree, she might never get back whatever it was she'd lost. Besides, the Snow Queen apparently hadn't needed an invitation to invade her memories before. If she was determined to do more damage, it didn't seem likely that Anna would be able to do anything to stop her. So was there really any choice to be made here at all?

She glanced at Olaf, whose face was lit up with an eager smile. He nodded encouragingly at her. She wished that she could share his confidence. Normally when she faced an inner debate like this, it came down to a choice between following her head or her heart. This time, though, both seemed to be equally unsure what she ought to do.

In the end, it wasn't exactly either of them that won out. Instead, it was the remnant inside her of the little girl who would always climb into the highest branches of the oak tree in the palace gardens. It was the part of her who had trudged through a long, dark tunnel beneath the siege wall just to experience a few brief hours of freedom beyond the castle walls. It was the young woman who had taken on a pack of wild wolves armed with little more than a torch, a bedroll, and a lute.

To say no was to give in to fear, something that Anna had rarely ever let herself do. Sometimes, even though you knew the risks, you simply had to take them because they were the only way to get what you really wanted. Courage had served her well so far in her life. How could she possibly get that life back without being as true to herself as she possibly could?

"Fine," she said with a conviction that she hoped was convincing, even to herself. "Do it then."

The Snow Queen considered her for a heartbeat before nodding curtly. Olaf, in apparent high spirits that he'd been the one to come up with a solution to the dilemma, scrambled up the back of the seat and dropped onto one of the containers in the back of the sled, thereby making room for the Snow Queen. He watched as she slid the short distance across the bench, drawing up right beside Anna. Her left hand rose, and its fingertips pressed against Anna's face. She then leaned forward so that the two women were practically nose to nose. Anna waited, hardly daring to breathe.

The Snow Queen's lips moved, and her whispered words were so quiet, Anna wasn't sure if she really heard them or if they only existed inside her head.

"I am sorry, but I can see no other way. I still believe that the power I seek exists within your sister. It merely waits to be awakened. If it hasn't revealed itself after all this time, then perhaps it simply needs the proper motivation."

Anna felt the icy touch of the Snow Queen's lips press against her skin.

The agony was unlike anything she had ever experienced before, even if she'd been able to remember the previous times her memories had been touched in like fashion. The pain of slowly freezing solid – of her blood crystallizing, of minute ice shards tearing at the fibers of her heart, of her lungs grating as they fought to expand and drag in air – was as nothing compared to this. She thought she was surely going to die. As the torment stretched on second after horrible second, she began to hope that she would, if only so that the excruciating pain would end.

And it felt as if her prayer might actually be answered. At least, it seemed to her that something was slipping away, something that felt very much like her life. Almost despite herself, instinct took over and fought to hold on. It grabbed and pulled and clawed, not yet willing to give in. Yet nothing could stop or even slow the inexorable loss.

She caught glimpses as it flowed past her. Elsa in the middle of the courtyard, shouting with impotent anguish as the Snow Queen's sled rose higher and higher into the sky. Elsa at the Coronation Ball, smiling just for a moment before her face fell and she turned away. Elsa peering out of her window at the courtyard below, wanting to see her sister and yet not be seen by her. Elsa glancing back ever so briefly before she disappeared behind a strange door. And then, vague and indistinct, almost like a dream, a single oversized snowflake hovering in the air above her as Anna looked up at it with awe and wonder. She reached out, wanting to touch it, to feel it, needing to hold on to it and never, ever let it go.

Then it, and Elsa, were gone. And in their place – in the empty, ringing stillness inside her head – a hard, cruel voice echoed over and over and over again…

 _Oh, Anna. If only there was someone out there who loved you._

It occurred to her that she ought to be crying. She had the sense that she should be wailing with the pain of a lifetime's worth of loss. At the very least, she ought to be feeling something, anything. But she couldn't remember why… and all she felt was cold and numb.

"Anna? Hey, Anna! Anna, are you alright? It worked, didn't it? Ooh, I just knew it would. Anna?"

Slowly, the repeated sound reached down to her and tugged at her attention. She responded just as slowly, ponderously climbing her way back up through layers of darkness. Finally, though she had no real sense of how long it actually took, her thoughts reconnected with her body once again. Will rediscovered action and, with an almost curious detachment, she made the decision to open her eyes.

A bizarre face leaned in close to her own. It was almost entirely white but for the disturbingly long and oddly bulbous orange cone that seemed to serve as its nose. The head was strangely misshapen: the eyes set too high, the cheeks jutting out too far to either side, the mouth much too wide with what looked like a single large tooth protruding out over the bottom lip. It was a caricatural mockery of a human face. And then it spoke.

"Was I right?"

Some final wellspring of remembered emotion fountained inside her chest. Her eyes grew wide and round. Her body tensed. Her chest expanded as she drew in breath.

Anna screamed.


	28. Hope Springs

Kristoff grimaced for about the hundredth time as his beloved sled bounced over yet another bump buried in the snow. It wasn't the initial jolt that bothered him so much as the way that certain parts continued to rattle about after the fact. The worst offender was the seat beneath him. Though his own weight was helping to hold it down somewhat, the busted bracket on the right side meant that both he and the bench were thrown a short distance into the air with every jostle of the sleigh. The result was that his backside felt as if it had been given a rather thorough paddling ever since they had managed their escape from the robbers' hideout. He rather wished it was as hard as he'd bragged that his head was. Or better yet, as hard as the troll who was riding along beside him, apparently experiencing no discomfort whatsoever.

Rohl was sharing the seat with Kristoff so that he could act as navigator and guide them to his clan's home. They had all agreed that was the most sensible place to go once their new friend had assured them that they had some store of food there that would be edible by humans. Besides, not unlike Grand Pabbie, the head of his clan had some skill at healing, and they both had injuries that needed to be tended. That was particularly true of Elsa.

She was sitting in the cargo area at Kristoff's suggestion, so that she wouldn't have to put up with the same rough ride that he was. All she had to worry about was not falling out the back due to the missing tailgate. Well, that and the steadily growing hunger that was gnawing at them both. And the fact that she still hadn't regained the use of her magic. And that she now had no way of tracking Olaf and Anna, which meant that if something didn't change soon, this entire adventure of their's might well end in abysmal failure.

No, nothing to worry about at all.

"Is it much further?" Kristoff asked. He'd been trying his level best not to keep repeating that question too very often, particularly since the growling of his stomach served much the same purpose anyway. But Rohl had assured them that they ought to reach the hot spring and the troll community by nightfall that day, and the shadows were already growing exceedingly long around them.

"Not far now," came the confident response. "I'd guess we're only about half an hour away, as the boulder rolls."

"How about as the sled…" (another bump, another wince) "...bobs?"

Rohl just grinned up at him and winked.

Kristoff frowned a little, but chose not to press the issue. Instead, he twisted around to spare a glance at Elsa. "At least we're finally getting close," he said. "You still doing okay back there?"

Elsa, who had drawn up her knees and was resting her head upon them, looked up and offered him a weak smile. Its failure to reach her eyes rendered it rather unconvincing, yet Kristoff decided it was another matter that he didn't feel capable of pursuing at the moment. He'd run out of reassuring words a day or more back, and the only answers he thought he might have to even the simplest of their many problems amounted to relying on the kindness of strangers. That didn't seem like a particularly worthy source of encouragement. So he settled for returning a halfhearted smile of his own. Then he went back to watching where they were going and trying to guess where the next jolt to the runners might be hiding.

The sun might still have been above the horizon by the time they finally reached their destination, but it was impossible for either Kristoff or Elsa to tell for certain. Per Rohl's instructions, they were approaching his home from the south, following along the base of a lengthy escarpment. The wall of rock was not particularly tall compared to the mountains they were used to in Arendelle, but it rose up sharp and sheer from the surrounding landscape and seemed to stretch on forever in either direction. As a result, they lost the light a good while before someone atop the rocky height would have. Sven, who had already been pulling them along slower than he normally would have in deference to the poor condition of the sled, was forced to slow even further in order to pick his way along safely in the deepening dusk.

"Ah," Rohl finally said with a relieved sigh. "It's good to be home." He pointed, and the two humans peered ahead, Elsa pushing herself up onto her knees in order to see. Sure enough, in the middle distance, they could just make out dozens of tiny pinpoints of light, dancing and wavering through the darkness. They might have been fireflies or starlight reflected on rippling water. The only thing that dispelled that illusion was the panoply of color. Blues, reds, and greens dominated, but scattered yellows and violets could be seen as well.

Kristoff called Sven to a halt even though they were still a goodly distance away. "Might be better to make our entrance on foot," he explained in response to Elsa's quizzical look. "Even with Rohl here to make introductions, we don't want to be rude. Nobody likes it when complete strangers show up unannounced, and they like it even less if they drive their sled right through the front door."

So the three travelers dismounted. With practiced hands, Kristoff quickly unhitched Sven from the sleigh, and then they all walked forward, Rohl in the lead. As they drew nearer, Elsa and Kristoff were gradually able to pick out more details, aided by a pale blue-green glow that seemed to be steadily growing from deep within the well of the hot springs that apparently formed the center of life in this little corner of the world.

The troll home was located in a spacious grotto, which partially arched over the warm waters bubbling up from the broad spring. Indeed, it looked like it might well have been carved out of the cliff face by those very waters and the long passage of time. Trolls of every age and size roamed about, some ambling along the stony shelf beneath the overhanging roof while others sat in small groups and chatted animatedly with one another. A great many of them, though, had waded out into the shallows of the warm pool and were enjoying a luxuriant soak in the mineral-rich waters. The youngsters in particular seemed to gravitate toward the spring, and much splashing and laughter could be heard from them as they engaged in some game that seemed to consist primarily of lobbing pine cones back and forth over their elders' heads. The adults didn't seem to mind this much, even when the occasional cone bounced off one of their green and gray pates.

It was one of the trollings who first noticed the arrival of the unexpected guests.

"Rohl's home!" she announced with a happy shout. Completely ignoring the pine cone that smacked into the water behind her, she hurriedly began making her way to the edge of the pool. "I was hoping you'd be back soon! I've been working really hard shaping that one moon crystal, just like you showed me, and I think I might finally have..."

The young troll suddenly stopped short and then leaned back, her green eyes growing wider and wider as they roved up well above Rohl's head. By the time they stumbled upon Elsa's blue ones, they were as wide as saucers. Elsa smiled kindly down at her, and there was genuine warmth in her expression this time.

"Mama!"

The girl turned and ran pell-mell in the opposite direction, calling for her mother over and over again as she went. It was that more than anything that drew the rest of the clan's attention. All conversation stopped, and all eyes followed the fleeing youngster. Then they all turned as one to see what exactly it was that she was fleeing from.

A startled Elsa was unsure how to react, and therefore did not. Kristoff – having a vague sense that, as the troll expert between the two of them, it was somehow his job to take charge of the situation – raised one hand in greeting.

"Hello," he said with a simple nod.

They could almost hear the sound of all those eyes just blinking back at them.

"Get Grand Mahble," someone whispered loudly.

From the vicinity of their knees, they heard Rohl mutter, "Well, that could have gone better. You should have let me do the talking."

"Talking? What talking? All I said was, 'Hello!'" Kristoff nearly spluttered in his indignation.

"Yeah, but it was the way you said it," Rohl clarified.

"And what way was that?"

"Tall."

Before Kristoff could reply, a low rumbling noise drew everyone's attention. Troll and human alike watched as what looked like a large boulder slowly rolled through the crowd, finally coming to a halt a short distance in front of the newcomers. When it unfurled, it revealed a matronly troll who appeared even more ancient than the venerable elder of Kristoff's own clan.

"Molten magma, Rohl!" she exclaimed, giving the younger troll a stern look. "It's a scout's job to bring back crystals and to warn us of strangers, not the other way 'round! What have you gotten into this time?"

Rohl squared his rounded shoulders, but if he was trying to look defiant, the effect was soundly spoiled by the sheepish expression upon his face. "They were in trouble, Gran. I stumbled across them while I was exploring that big cave system down south. You know, the one where I always find all the best stuff. They were being held by Milda's bunch, and..."

"Milda? Rohl, you know perfectly well the only reason I let you keep going back to that place is because you swore to me that you'd stay well away from those humans. They're nothing but trouble. Even their own folk know that. And now you've gone and brought the trouble home with you!"

Rohl decided to risk a reassuring smile. "No, no, it's not like that, really. For starters, I _was_ trying to avoid them. How was I supposed to know they'd suddenly decide to make use of a tunnel I thought they'd abandoned years ago? And besides that, these two..."

"Three," Kristoff corrected, laying a hand upon Sven's shoulder. But when both trolls favored him with a look of supreme annoyance, he seemed to wilt a little, apparently deciding that maybe the time had indeed come to follow the advice about who should and shouldn't be talking. Rohl turned back to Grand Mahble.

"...they were just innocent travelers who got waylaid by that band of bandits. Just because they were in trouble doesn't mean that they are trouble."

"Maybe they were and maybe they weren't, but now that you've brought them here, they most definitely are. Honestly, it wasn't bad enough revealing our existence to them? You had to show them right where we live, too? Remaining hidden from humans is how this clan has managed to stay safe for so long, Rohl. I always thought you had more sense than this."

"Yeah, but Grand Mahble..."

"But? But what? What possible excuse could you have to justify doing something so incredibly foolish?"

"Um, excuse me," Elsa interrupted in a quiet and oh-so-very-polite voice. The look Grand Mahble turned on her wasn't much more friendly than the one Kristoff had received, but Elsa had endured far worse to be appreciably intimidated by it now. Putting on the no-nonsense face she always sought to bring to the negotiating table, she looked back at the old troll without flinching and said, quite simply, "We already knew about trolls."

Grand Mahble favored her with a condescending and skeptical grimace. "Of course you did."

"Well, given that Kristoff here was pretty much raised by them, and that the head of his clan saved my sister's life when she was just five years old, and that Bulda and Cliff have both practically begun picking out baby names for when she and Kristoff finally… Ahem. Anyway, the point is that yes, we do."

The troll matriarch scowled up at Elsa. Then she scowled at Kristoff. Finally and predictably, she scowled at Rohl. "Even assuming I was to believe such a story, how could you possibly have known that was the case before you decided on this little rescue of yours?"

Rohl's face lit up with triumphant vindication as he pointed dramatically at Kristoff. "Because I heard this one singing one of our lullabies."

For the first time, it appeared that Grand Mahble didn't have a ready response. Instead, she regarded Kristoff again, her face wholly inscrutable. Judging that to be an improvement over the open hostility she had displayed up to that point, he quickly considered his options. Then he squatted down, tapped Rohl on the shoulder, and pointed at his pack. His eyebrows raised with curiosity, the troll unslung it and handed it over.

Opening it, Kristoff peered inside. Then he plunged his hand in and, a moment later, withdrew Rohl's crystal blade. Handing the rest of the pack back, he flipped the knife downward and proceeded to use the tip to scratch a series of overlapping lines in the rocky ground just before his feet. When he had finished, he flipped the sharp crystal around again and offered it, handle first, back to Rohl. Then he watched Grand Mahble intently, waiting for her reaction.

She stared at the markings he had made, a frown back on her face again. Then she gave a loud snort – or maybe it was a muted laugh – and a curt nod. Turning around, she began to walk off, but she gave them a beckoning gesture as she did so. "Right. Follow me then."

"About time," Kristoff grumbled quietly. "All the same, might be best if you wait here, Sven. We shouldn't be gone long." He gave the reindeer a quick pat on his neck, then set off after the troll. Despite the gruff tone of his words, the tight muscles in his jaw suggested that he was trying hard not to smirk.

This left Elsa looking between the two retreating backs and the scratches on the ground, plainly confused. "Troll runes?" she guessed. "What do they say?"

Rohl was chuckling. "'Can I talk now?'" he quoted through his laughter. "Come on. Best not to keep her waiting." He hurried off after the others, and Elsa followed close behind.

Grand Mahble led the companions to the back of the grotto. There, a flat slab of slate had been pushed against the wall like some sort of dais. The elderly troll climbed up onto it with some small amount of difficulty, then sat down and faced the other three. Her eyes settled on Kristoff.

"Well, you wanted to talk," she said testily. "So talk. You can start by telling me exactly how it is that you came to be raised by trolls. Then after that, maybe you can explain how somebody with such a solid and sensible upbringing would ever let themselves get mixed up with the likes of Milda and her bunch. And when all that's done, then we can get around to why you've come here and what exactly it is you want from us."

Kristoff leaned a little closer to Elsa and, out of the corner of his mouth, muttered, "I'm beginning to think that maybe we ought to just write all this down. It might save us time in the long run." Her only response, however, was to pin him with a what-are-you-waiting-for look, which convinced him to set his attempt at levity aside and grow serious. Clearing his throat, he proceeded to once again spin their long and complicated tale.

Grand Mahble was not the quiet, passive listener that Milda had been. She interrupted often to ask questions or to clarify some particular detail. Elsa chimed in here and there, helping to fill in gaps that Kristoff inadvertently missed. And this time, since they hoped they were talking to a new ally instead of a woman of dubious moral character like Milda, Elsa did not attempt to conceal the complete set of complications that had resulted from the head trauma she had received.

"Ah, now that makes sense," Rohl said when he finally learned about Elsa's missing magic. "When you were going on with Milda about all those powers you got from the Snow Queen, I wondered why you needed my help to escape."

"It's more than just that, though," Elsa admitted, a hint of despair creeping into her voice. "My magic was the only way we had to track the Snow Queen and our only hope of finding Anna again. Without it..." She lapsed into an anguished silence. Rohl looked at her curiously, then opened his mouth as if to say something. But before he could utter another word, Kristoff spoke instead.

"That's why we're here," he said to Grand Mahble. "Rohl said you're a skilled healer. I know I've seen Grand Pabbie do some incredible things with his magic. Like we told you, he was able to cure Anna after Elsa accidentally struck her in the head with her ice powers. If he could take magic out, then we were hoping that you might be able to help put it back in."

Grand Mahble considered them both, but Elsa in particular. Her face, though unavoidably stony, was no longer as stern as it had been earlier. After a few seconds of this quiet contemplation, she spoke.

"We know of the Snow Queen," she said. "We trolls have had dealings with her before, a long time ago. She came to us seeking help that we could not provide, and she was not pleased. Fortunately, we trolls are made of sturdy stuff and were able to survive her wrath, but in her anger, she wrought such destruction as none of our kind will ever soon forget. She is like a force of nature. You can try to weather it or you can try to run from it, but you cannot fight it, much less hope to stop it."

"I have no choice," Elsa pleaded. "She has my sister. I've got to try. If my powers came from her in the first place, then I might be the only one who can possibly defeat her, but without them, we don't stand a chance. So please, if there's anything you can do to help me get them back..."

Mahble crossed her arms and frowned. She possessed a most impressive glower, and she knew how to use it to good effect. It was in full force now, yet it seemed unable to intimidate Elsa in the slightest. She just stared back, though without any answering challenge in her eyes. All they held was a desperate hope. At last, Mahble sighed.

"It sounds like you got off lucky in that wreck. Could have been much worse, at any rate. If you'd broken any bones, you'd have been feeling them by now. Whatever bumps, bruises, and sore muscles you might have suffered, the hot springs should do wonders for them all. But that clout to your head..." She lifted one hand and motioned toward Elsa. "Come here," she said. "Let me have a look at you."

Elsa spared Kristoff a quick glance, then took two steps forward and knelt down before the wizened troll. She winced as unyielding fingers probed at the tender spot atop of her skull where her head had struck the log, as well as the second and more obvious wound that was still marked by a yellowish bruise near her temple. The examination did not take long, and when it was finished, Mahble clucked her tongue once and shook her head. "Barbarians," she grumbled. Then she looked up at Kristoff.

"I don't know what exactly you consider magic in this clan of yours, but I'm pretty sure I've never done anything of the sort. I suppose I do know a thing or two about dealing with injuries, though they've mostly been of the trollish variety. So I can't make any guarantees, but… I'll do what I can."

Her next words were addressed to Rohl. "I'll need my medicine bag," she said, "and a large basin of water from the spring." Rohl nodded, turned, and had already began to scurry off when Mahble called after him with one final instruction.

"Oh, and my hammer."

Elsa blanched, and once again gave Kristoff a concerned look. All he could offer her in return was a shrug of shared confusion and what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

Maybe ten minutes passed before Rohl returned, his arms wrapped around a sack that looked very much like the one in which he kept his various crystal implements. Another troll followed along behind him with a stone basin perched atop her head, her arms raised up to steady it. Both bag and basin were set on the dais next to Grand Mahble, who rose to her feet, flipped open the flap that had been covering the pouch, and began to rummage around inside.

Mumbling distractedly to herself, she withdrew a series of unusual items, examined each one carefully, then set it down on the ground next to her before plunging her hand into the sack again. There were clear vials in a range of sizes, inside which various liquids sloshed or oozed. There were bundles of dried leaves, folded or rolled and then tied together with a length of string. There were small boxes with hinged lids, which she would open and peer into before snapping them shut again and moving on.

And then there were crystals. It was one of these that finally put an end to her search, though as the troll held it close to her eye and examined it carefully, Elsa wondered if crystal was really the right word. It was milky white with perhaps just the faintest tinge of pink to it and, as far as Elsa could see, it lacked any faceting. In fact, it looked about as smooth as the stones she used to skip across the frozen fjord when she'd been young – pebbles whose sharp edges had all been worn off by the constant lapping of water along the shore during the warmer months.

Crystal or not, Grand Mahble appeared to be satisfied with its condition. Grasping it carefully between two thick fingers, she walked over to the broad stone bowl. Only then did she seem to realize that something was missing, and she shot Rohl an accusatory glare.

"You forgot the hammer," she said in irritation.

"Did not," he replied defensively, "but I've only got two hands, haven't I? Had to get help just to bring that basin back, didn't I?" Unslinging his own pack as he was talking, he reached in and pulled out what Elsa was decidedly relieved to see was a rather smallish hammer. Despite its size, though, she still remained somewhat apprehensive. She really couldn't see how a third knock to her head, however small, was going to undo the damage from the first two. She watched warily as Rohl handed the tool over.

Grand Mahble, gem in one hand and hammer in the other, favored Elsa with another long and indecipherable look. Then she again scrutinized the white jewel, turning it this way and that to examine it from all angles. She appeared to be looking for something – maybe a mark of some sort, though the stone seemed to be entirely unblemished to Elsa's eyes.

And then, with little to no warning, Grand Mahble held the gemstone out over the basin and, with great care and precision, tapped it soundly with a single blow of the hammer. Elsa gasped. What had been a whole, hard, and solid piece of brilliant stone just a moment earlier now crumbled instantly to dust and fell into the water below.

The surface began to foam and froth almost immediately. The bubbles, though tiny at first, did not stay that way for long. Instead of bursting asunder, each one appeared to simply merge with its neighbors so that, though the number of bubbles decreased, the size of those that remained steadily grew. And as they got bigger, it seemed as though their walls became thicker. The rate of mergers slowed, though without ever quite stopping, until eventually only two bubbles remained. After precariously sharing the bowl for an impossibly long time, even they finally collapsed together to form a single hemispherical bubble that completely covered the basin from edge to edge.

When Mahble tapped it with her hammer, it popped with a sound like the shattering of the thinnest glass imaginable.

She gestured for Elsa to lean in even closer. Then she poked a finger into the bowl. When she withdrew it, it came out covered in a thick goo roughly the consistency of paste. With her other hand, she turned Elsa's face to one side so that she could easily reach the ugly bruise left behind by Milda's blow. Reaching out, she brushed the white substance across the wound.

Elsa gasped again, though not from pain. Rather, it was the sudden sense of intense cold where the strange concoction touched her skin that startled her. It had been years upon years since she last remembered feeling cold, so that she'd very nearly forgotten the sensation. Still, there was no mistaking it as Mahble continued to spread the poultice. Without saying a word, the troll then grasped Elsa's chin, tilted her head downward, and began to press more of the substance through her hair and against the similarly aggrieved spot atop her skull. The cold spread outward from there as well.

It spread inward, too. She felt it not just on her skin, but in the muscles and tissue below. The effect even managed to penetrate her skull, and when it did, Elsa was gripped by a sudden and profound sense of relief. It was as though a chronic pain that had been with her for so long as to go almost unnoticed abruptly vanished. Or perhaps akin to having a persistently annoying noise that had been hovering just at the edge of hearing unexpectedly fall silent. She closed her eyes and took a long, sweet breath, luxuriating in both the peaceful sensation and the surprisingly pleasant odor of the balm.

The next instant, her eyes flew open. "Olaf!" she exclaimed. "Anna!" She sprang to her feet so quickly, she nearly sent Grand Mahble toppling over into the cistern. Grabbing Kristoff by the arms, she beamed broadly at him. "I can feel it, Kristoff! I can feel my magic again! I know where they are. And Kristoff, they're close! Closer than they've ever been since we left Arendelle. And I don't think they're moving, either. They must have finally reached the Snow Queen's palace. Oh, Kristoff! We're almost there. We're finally going to save Anna! Come on! We need to get going."

"Whoa, slow down there, scrappy." Kristoff just managed to snag Elsa's wrist as she tried to hurry back the way they'd come, her mind obviously full of one thing and one thing only. "Not so fast. We can't just go charging off completely unprepared."

"We've had weeks to prepare," she protested. "What else have we been doing this whole time we've been chasing them? What more do you think we can do now that we haven't already done?"

Kristoff bit back his first reply. Mahble's ministrations might have rejuvenated Elsa, but speaking solely for himself, he was still bone weary and sore all over. Between the crash and the rough ride from the robber's hideout, there were very few of his muscles that weren't aching painfully at that moment. Privately, he'd been looking forward to spending at least a little time submerged in the hot spring. He'd been hoping that, by the time they had to leave again, the waters would have helped to bring him back to his full strength. He was certainly going to need it for the confrontation ahead, after all. Yet somehow, with Anna's safety in the balance, asking for a delay to indulge in a relaxing soak didn't seem appropriate.

"You've just barely recovered," he said instead. "If we're about to face the Snow Queen, you're going to need to be one hundred percent. Sure, you can feel your magic, but you haven't even tried to use it yet. Who knows what else might still be wrong?"

"Well then, let's find out." Yanking her arm free of his grip, she spun away and marched off toward the hot spring.

"Don't freeze it!" Kristoff warned in an exasperated tone as he strode quickly after her. Rohl glanced anxiously at Mahble, then followed as well.

"Magic," Grand Mahble snorted. Despite the protests of age-stiffened joints, she dropped down off the stone slab. "Might be the single biggest problem in this entire world, except for all the others." She trundled off toward the spring, wondering if her first instincts upon the strangers' arrival hadn't been right after all.

She found Elsa, Kristoff, and Rohl standing alone near the edge of the pool. The other trolls had cleared out of the way, giving the humans a wide berth. They clustered together along the edges of a broad circle that was roughly centered around Elsa. The water itself had been emptied of all bathers and waders. Elsa's eyes were closed, her breathing slow and steady, arms hanging loosely at her sides. It almost looked like she was meditating. Beside her, Kristoff frowned, unsure if this was really the best idea, yet unwilling to interrupt her concentration for fear of making matters worse. The only sound was the gurgling of the water as it bubbled up from its underground aquifer.

Then, in a surprisingly undramatic gesture, Elsa raised one hand.

Along the far edge of the pool, a gently curved sheet of water rose up into the air, freezing immediately into solid ice. It continued to climb higher and higher, bending away from the onlookers. Soon, the sheet split into half a dozen separate channels, each of which began to slowly twist and turn as it reached skyward. The various forks curved back around so that, in a matter of moments, they passed over the heads of trolls and humans alike. Some extended all the way to the cliff face. Others descended in stair-step fashion to the floor of the grotto. When the last one reached rock and the sparkle of its magical growth faded away, Elsa lowered her hand and expelled the lungful of air she'd slowly drawn in throughout the entire endeavor. The warm water of the spring continued to burble away, oblivious to all that had happened.

It was strange, Kristoff thought as he gazed up with professional appreciation at the flawless ice construct. There had been no sound from the trolls before Elsa had begun, and there was still none now. Yet somehow, the quality of the silence had changed. Whereas before the air had been thick with fear and mistrust, it now held a sense of awe and wonder. The sensation was unmistakable. He had felt it himself the first time he'd laid eyes on Elsa's ice palace.

The silence was broken by the sound of a mother's anxious voice. "Gemma, what on earth are you doing? Get down from there at once!"

Everyone looked up to see a young trolling who had wasted no time whatsoever climbing the stairs to the top of one of the frozen concourses. She stood there now, at the exact point where the steps stopped and turned into a track of perfectly smooth ice that descended all the way to the pool below.

"Okay, Mama!" Gemma said brightly. Then, to the surprise of the adults and the delight of the children, she dropped onto her round bottom and pushed off, curling into a ball and rolling with increasing speed down the long and twisting chute. Her squeal of excitement was caught by the grotto, then echoed back at least three times louder. It only stopped when she reached the end of the curving slide and dropped into the water with a tremendous splash.

Her head broke the surface of the pool, followed immediately by a ringing peal of laughter. Two seconds later, there was a scrum at the base of each icy stairway as all of the trollings – and a few of their elders – sought to follow in her footsteps.

Elsa turned to Kristoff, her expression betraying only the slightest hint of smugness. "Can we go now?"

They both looked down as, before the ice harvester could answer, another voice interrupted. "I'm going with you, too." Rohl stood there, arms stubbornly crossed, and stared up at them as if daring either one to argue the point.

"Ahem." All three turned to see Grand Mahble, who had switched her glower back on and whose arms were crossed every bit as stubbornly. Faced with that imposing figure, Rohl's arms dropped to his side before rising again in a placating gesture.

"Gran, I have to go. Don't you see? They're my friends, and they're going to need all the help they can get."

"Mm-hmm. And what good are you going to be against something like this?" Mahble indicated Elsa's magical creation with a jerk of her head.

"I don't know. But I helped them once already, and who could have seen that coming? Besides, isn't it a scout's job to help keep the clan safe from danger? If the Snow Queen isn't dangerous then I don't know what is. And since Kristoff here was raised by trolls, then… well… then I'd say that makes him a distant relative at least. Surely, we have an obligation to help one of our own."

One corner of Mahble's scowl twitched fractionally upward. Then she shook her head. "I never have problems like this with any of the other scouts. Can't say for certain whether that's a good thing or not. Still, might be best for you to make yourself scarce for a while before you go rubbing off on them and giving them all ideas. At least it'd give me time to figure out how I'm going to deal with a dozen more like you."

Rohl grinned, then looked back up at Elsa and Kristoff. "Well, that's settled then. When do we leave?"

"We still don't have any food," Kristoff pointed out.

"Not a problem." Mahble clapped her hands and motioned to a couple of nearby trolls, who promptly scurried off to whatever served as the clan's larder. They returned just a few minutes later, supporting an almost comically large covered basket between them. "Hopefully this will be enough. And if you all manage to survive this crazy mission of yours, then when you bring Rohl back, I think we ought to be able to spare enough to see the rest of you well on your way."

"Thank you," replied Elsa earnestly. "And not just for the food, but for everything you've done. All of Arendelle owes you a great debt."

Grand Mahble waved such talk away. "We don't want it. Don't need a whole kingdom knowing that we even exist in the first place. You just keep mum about ever having been here or seen us, and we'll call it even."

Rohl looked shocked by this pronouncement. "Shouldn't we at least let them tell the other trolls? I mean, we never heard any news about all the clans that traveled south ages ago. We all figured they hadn't made it. Wouldn't it be good for us all to establish relations again?"

Mahble did an even worse job of concealing her smile this time. "I'll think about it," she said.

"Well then, we'd better be going," Elsa declared. "After all, we've kept Anna and Olaf waiting long enough already. Come on, Rohl."

Kristoff allowed himself one last, longing look at the spring's inviting waters. Then he took the basket of food, hefted it in his arms, nodded his own thanks to the trolls, and headed off after his friends. As they reached the edge of the troll village, he stopped and peered over his burden.

"Hey, where's Sven?" he asked. Then he called out, "Sven! Sven, where are you, buddy?"

A muffled honking noise pulled his attention around to the direction from which they'd just come. Had his hands been free, one of them would almost certainly have smacked into his forehead. "Elsa," he said loudly over his shoulder. "A little help here?"

"What is it?" she asked, backtracking and peering around him. He heard her stifle a laugh. "Oh, Sven..."

The reindeer was standing right at the bottom of the ice chute. Trollings reaching the end of their descent were popping out of their boulder forms a few seconds early, then leaping up, grabbing one of his antlers, and spinning through the air to add an extra bit of flourish to their entry into the pool. But Sven wasn't maintaining his position just to amuse the children.

He tried to twist around to look back at them apologetically. His attempts were hampered, however, by the fact that the tip of his tongue was stuck to the side of the slide.

Elsa flicked a finger, causing a thin layer of ice to discretely evaporate and Sven's tongue to snap back into his mouth. Giddy with relief, the reindeer bounded back along the edge of the pool to rejoin his comrades. Seeing Kristoff's displeasure as he approached, though, his long face grew slightly longer, so that by the time he'd reached them, his head was drooping in a dispirited sort of way.

" _I'm sorry, Kristoff,"_ said Kristoff in his Sven voice. _"I'm a bad reindeer. I promised I wouldn't lick Elsa's ice again, but I just can't help myself. It looks so good..."_

"Yeah well, I would have left you there a while longer to finally teach you a lesson, but we don't have time right now. We have to get going. Elsa knows where Anna and Olaf are, and she says they're close. So are you ready to get back to work?"

At the sound of his friends' names, Sven had lifted his head and perked up his ears. Now his entire demeanor changed again, back to the same excitement he had shown upon his release. Without waiting, he galloped on ahead to where they'd left the sled, passing Elsa and Rohl on his way so that he was already in position, waiting for them all when they finally arrived.

With a grunt, Kristoff heaved the basket into the rear of the sleigh and pushed it as far forward as it would go. Then he gazed disconsolately at the missing tailgate and the fractured seat brace. His buttocks twinged at the prospect of another uncomfortably bouncy ride. But this was for Anna, so he would endure whatever needed to be endured. After all, Elsa had climbed up onto the driver's bench this time too, as though moving that short distance forward meant she would get to her sister that much faster.

Even so, as he walked past on his way to hitch up Sven, Kristoff glanced back at the cargo compartment. "I just hope all our food doesn't tumble out the back before we get a chance to eat any of it," he grumbled quietly.

Elsa didn't even turn around. She simply raised one arm and twirled her wrist. The next thing Kristoff knew, the dark gray and rich browns of the sled had almost entirely vanished. Instead, apart from the runners and the seat itself, the entire thing was now completely covered with a blue-white sheen. A new tailgate had miraculously appeared, along with restraints to hold the basket firmly in place. Even the right side of the bench was fastened as securely to the frame as it ever had been before the wreck.

He gave Elsa a look that managed to say both, "Thank you," and, "Show-off." Then he continued forward to finish the harnessing. Despite his aches and his grumbling, he really was as eager as the rest of them to be getting on their way.

• • •

"Are you sure your magic's working properly?"

Kristoff had to shout to make himself heard above the howling wind that was driving stinging snow into their faces. A storm had blown up while they'd been sheltered in the lee of the troll's escarpment, but there was nothing much to protect them here on the flat, open ground beyond. Elsa had, for a while, attempted to direct the snow around them, but they had both eventually agreed that it wasn't worth the effort. She could do nothing about the biting wind itself, which was worse than the snow it carried. Nor could the bubble of protection she had offered extend far enough out to really do much to improve visibility.

The storm had completely blotted out the stars. Only the diffuse glow through the clouds of a mercifully full moon gave them any light at all, so Kristoff had to rely on his own internal sense of direction to guide them. To that end, Rohl's presence had already proven invaluable. Thanks to his many explorations, the troll knew the land by heart for miles around. He'd been able to help them avoid accidentally plowing into buried fissures or other hidden obstacles that could have proved troublesome if not downright fatal. Even so, Kristoff was increasingly feeling that they would have been better served by spending the night back at the grotto instead of trying to make their way through this mess in the dark. It wouldn't do Anna any good if they got themselves lost or buried alive before they could even reach her.

"I'm sure," Elsa yelled back. "We're really close! I can feel it! We should be almost there!"

Kristoff raised a mittened hand to his eyes and tried to squint through the snow to make out anything other than a featureless expanse of white. Poor visibility or not, he couldn't help but think that an immense palace like the one Gerda had described to them ought to be visible by now if they really were as close to it as Elsa claimed they were. Yet between the swirling flakes, all he saw was the black of night in every direction.

"To the right!" Elsa shouted again. "Turn a few degrees to the right!"

With a tug on the reins, he conveyed her instructions to Sven, who obliged as best as the thick powder on the ground would let him. Knowing full well that Elsa had ordered the course correction due to a sense that he himself simply did not possess, Kristoff nevertheless tried harder than ever to pierce the veil ahead in hopes of spotting some sign of their goal, whatever it might look like.

"Slow down! We're almost right on top of it!"

Having no choice but to put his faith in Elsa's magical connection to her creations, Kristoff complied. Sven, whose pace had already been reduced to barely a trot by the abysmal weather, now dropped down to an even slower walk. Braving the buffeting wind, Kristoff rose from from his seat and leaned forward against the dash panel, staring at where the horizon ought to be for any sign of the huge and imposing walls of the Snow Queen's fortress.

"Stop! Stop!" Before Kristoff had even had time to register her command, Elsa had leaped from the sled and was running forward through the snow.

 _No,_ some part of him thought as he hauled back on the reins one more time. _Not through the snow. Over it!_ Elsa's feet barely left any impression at all behind her. Maybe it had been packed down and hardened more than he would have expected. He was familiar enough with the types of snowstorms that one could expect to encounter in the mountains around Arendelle, but this far north, maybe things behaved a little differently.

So it was that Kristoff stepped off the floorboards of the sleigh expecting to place his weight onto a mostly solid surface that had been hard-packed almost to ice. He swore loudly when his left leg disappeared nearly up to his knee, causing him to overbalance and topple face first into the fresh powder. The trollish profanity was quickly muffled behind a mouthful of snow.

Grabbing onto the sleigh and using it to haul himself back to his feet, he spat out the snow and tried somewhat futilely to wipe off his face with thoroughly sodden gloves. Turning to Rohl, who had been sitting on the bench between him and Elsa, he cautioned, "Better stay here! You drop to the bottom of this and we might never find you!" Then he slogged off past Sven and into the darkness that had swallowed Elsa, hoping fervently that he wouldn't lose his way in the blizzard himself. If he did, none of them might see each other ever again.

Fortunately, he didn't have far to go. He found Elsa just as the sled vanished from sight behind him. But what he saw then made his heart leap into his throat and the bottom drop out of his stomach.

Elsa had fallen to her knees, her face buried in her hands and her shoulders shaking with unheard sobs. Beside her in the nearly whiteout conditions, there was a denser, more solid mass of white. Not wanting to believe what he was seeing, Kristoff pushed forward, hoping that he would discover that his eyes were only playing tricks on him or that he was somehow managing to misinterpret the entire scene.

As he drew closer, he realized with a sickening feeling that neither of those possibilities was true.

Olaf stood beside Elsa, one hand resting on her shoulder in a completely inadequate attempt to console her. His face, usually given over to broad smiles and merry laughter, was now as downcast as ever it had been. He looked up as Kristoff stopped a single pace away. And it might only have been his imagination – it might have been an illusion caused by the falling snow and the poor light – yet whatever the reason, Kristoff would have sworn that the snowman's cheeks glistened wetly.

"Anna," Olaf said, though Kristoff had to rely on reading the shape of the snowman's mouth more than hearing his words above the raging gale. "Anna, she… she threw me out."


	29. Wisdom, Bravery, and Compassion

The door had barely closed behind him before a pair of hands was reaching up to help him shrug out of his heavy winter coat.

"You're late," said the voice that went with those hands. "Everyone else is already here, and I'm pretty sure they started without you, so you'd best be heading back there right away. Don't worry, though. I'll bring you a pint and something hot to eat. It'll only take a minute."

"Thanks, Helga," he said gratefully. "You're a dear, and I'm starving. You wouldn't believe the day I've had. Didn't even have time for lunch. I mean, from the moment I got to work this morning..."

"Josef Mikkelsen, what did I just get through telling you?" she replied tartly. "Stop flapping your gums and get going this instant!"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied with an abashed grin. As the hostess of The Flapping Flounder shooed him forward, Josef crossed the main dining area until he reached the closed door that led to the back room of the modest seaside restaurant. He rapped twice with his knuckles, then pushed it open without waiting for a response.

The room he entered was dimly lit, with only a single oil lamp at the center of the rectangular dining table providing any illumination. It was enough to make visible the faces of those who sat near it in the middle, but it barely reached to either end. There, though dinner-stained plates and half-emptied mugs could still be made out, those who had eaten from them were largely hidden in shadow.

Those faces he could see had all turned to face the door when it had opened. They mostly greeted him with curt nods. Only one or two managed brief smiles. The reasons that had brought them all here on this night had also seen to it that good humor was in short supply.

"Sorry I'm late," he said.

"We're just glad you're still with us and not down in the dungeons," a middle-aged woman replied. Hers had been one of the smiles.

"You and me both, Karina," Josef replied most sincerely.

"Have a seat," added a man two chairs down, and he pointed to an empty space near one end of the table. "As always, we should not dally. The longer we all remain together instead of in our own homes, the greater the chance that someone will finally realize where we are and what we've been doing." A rumble of assent rolled around the room as Josef squeezed behind those already seated and lowered himself into the vacant chair, just managing to suppress a smirk at the irony as he did so. Pauli was a good man – smart and trustworthy to a fault. Yet he never uttered two words if he could say the same thing in twenty, and his long-winded discourses had been responsible for dragging out their meetings more than just about anything or anyone else.

"Now as I was saying," Pauli went on, "we have finally received a reply from the loyalists at Ingensteds." He brandished a small sheaf of papers, which he consulted as he attempted to summarize their contents. "The harassment of Ragnarr's troops stationed at the garrison continues, though it isn't clear how much longer they can keep it up. The risk grows with every passing day, and not just to the soldiers themselves. They have frequently chosen to attack the invading forces after they have raided nearby villages for supplies, since they are more exposed outside the protective walls of the fort and also encumbered by their spoils. Moreover, if our men are fortunate enough to reclaim any of the food or other goods that were stolen from the villagers, then they're able to return them to their rightful owners and help reduce the hardships the innocent are having to endure.

"Unfortunately, this generosity has not gone unnoticed by the enemy, and as of late, they have begun taking it out on the citizenry themselves. Whenever a raid is thwarted, they now return to the same village within a day, only they bring more men and they make off with even more than they did the first time, leaving the commoners with next to nothing for themselves. Some people have attempted to hide emergency stores so that at least the children won't be left completely without, but anyone caught doing so is dragged out into the town square and made to serve as an example for those who might have similar ideas.

"In response, our loyalist forces are attempting to change tactics. They're now seeking to attack before the enemy reaches their destination, hoping to drive them back before they can even begin their raids. This has proven to be considerably more dangerous, however. Ragnarr's men are fresher then, less burdened and more wary. They have also found ways to avoid the pinch points that most readily lend themselves to ambushes. And their officers are proud enough that they are less likely to call an actual retreat than they were when it was simply a matter of urging their men along faster in the direction they had already been traveling in the first place.

"Still, it is hoped that, if they can be deterred often enough, empty bellies might begin to blunt their effectiveness. How long that may take, if it works at all, I'm afraid we can only guess."

An old woman with wispy white hair and a wheezy voice leaned forward. "Just goes to show that Ragnarr isn't half as smart as he thinks. One minute, he's trying to convince everyone that he's the hero; the next, he's abusing them like the tyrant that he is. Sooner or later, even the most gullible idiots are going to realize his word can't be trusted."

"There's another possibility," said Pauli. "Ragnarr would most likely have had to scrape his little army together from wherever he could find them. Some of them might have been loaned to him by politicians from whom he managed to curry favor, but I suspect that there are likely a fair share among them who are little better than mercenaries. Either way, what loyalties they may carry are almost certainly not with Ragnarr himself. It may be that he's finding it difficult to keep them all in check, particularly those far away from the comforts of the capital. They may have been kept well in line while they were under their general's watchful eye, but now..."

"Well, that's a good thing, isn't it?" The interruption came from directly behind Josef, and he looked up and around to find that Helga had managed to slip in quietly, obviously not feeling the need to knock in her own establishment. She gave him a quick smile as she set down a tall stein before him, followed by a plate of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. Then she straightened and looked across the table. "After all," she continued, "if Ragnarr can't even control his own men, then surely it's only a matter of time before he loses control of Arendelle as a whole, right?"

"That's possible," Pauli conceded, "but how much damage will have been done in the meantime? How long will it take and how much will the people have to suffer before his grip finally slips and we can have any hope of restoring proper order? Besides, if he can convince enough of Arendelle's soldiery to believe his stories, then he'll soon have sufficient manpower to reinforce the outlying garrisons and bring the entire kingdom to heel."

"I don't think we need worry about that," said a voice from the shadows at the far end of the table. All heads turned to look in that direction, expecting the speaker to continue. When he did not, they all exchanged uncertain looks. And though they had been given no further reasoning to back the rather brazen claim, nobody seemed willing to contest the matter. By unspoken agreement, they all decided to move on.

"What about you, Josef?" Pauli's question suddenly caused everyone to focus upon the stablemaster. "What news from inside the castle?"

Josef, who had just shoved a forkful of salmon and eggs into his mouth, chewed rapidly and swallowed sooner than he would have liked. The food at the Flounder was always excellent, and it seemed almost an insult not to savor it properly. Still, there were more important things than a good meal. Sitting up straighter and clearing his throat, he swept his gaze once around the room, an apologetic look on his face. Then he spoke.

"Less than I'd like, though I suppose the lack of bad news is a blessing at least. I still haven't been able to get down to the dungeons to see the prisoners or deliver any messages. They aren't about to let a simple horseman down there, particularly when they hardly let anyone else go down as it is. Fortunately, Hille remains on that very short list. I tend to think it's because Ragnarr doesn't feel like he has quite enough trustworthy men to waste any of them delivering meals, so a few members of the kitchen staff are given that duty instead."

He looked across the table at Karina. "You'll be glad to know that Gerda is still holding up well, all things considered. At least Hille tells me that she hasn't lost her sense of humor, though I gather it's become a bit more pointed and tends to pretty well stick to a single target these days."

Karina smiled at him again and nodded gratefully for the consideration. Though she had left the palace's employ years ago when she'd gotten married and started a family, her friendship with her old supervisor had never waned, and she'd always been among the first to volunteer whenever the kitchen needed extra help for special occasions like the annual feast on Midsummer's Eve. She'd nearly fretted herself into a fit when she'd first heard that the old cook had been inexplicably locked up in the dungeons. Since then, any news she could get about her friend helped to ease her mind.

"So we know that the prisoners are being well fed, at least," Josef continued. "Other than that, Hille said it seems like they're mostly being ignored. Despite Ragnarr's talk of questioning them about this so-called conspiracy of his, he appears to have decided that he's gotten all the useful information he can out of them at this point. Now, he seems content to just let them rot down there, if only to make sure they aren't out here stirring up trouble."

"Heh. Right. That would be our job." The barb drew a few short, though appreciative, laughs.

"There's no question that it's made things more difficult, though," said Pauli. "Nearly all the people who hold the real power and influence in this community are being kept prisoner in there. Vendel Dyerdahl's connections would certainly have been useful to us on several occasions already. The rest of the council could have helped to sway public opinion, too. Even those like Gerda would have been an asset. She has friends on practically every single street here in town. People would have trusted what she had to say."

"It's shameful," said Helga, who was now leaning against the wall behind Josef, arms crossed over her chest. "I hear folk talking in here every day, and the number who have let themselves be taken in by Ragnarr's speech is simply unbelievable. He was just persuasive enough to convince some of those 'gullible idiots,' and now they're doing his work for him by trying to convert everyone they know to their way of thinking. Some still don't believe a word of it, but there are plenty more who can't decide what to believe. It's gotten so bad, hardly a day goes by without at least one shouting match between the two camps here in the restaurant. Once or twice, it's even come to blows, though at least they've been good enough to take those out into the street so far. I'm just afraid that one of these days, tempers are going to flare too hot too quickly, and I'll be left dealing with an out-and-out brawl and a bunch of broken furniture."

Pauli scowled. "Exactly what Ragnarr wanted, no doubt. He had to know that he'd never be able to convince everyone, but he hardly needed to. Convince just enough, and now he can sit back and let us fight each other instead of fighting him."

"Even the people who don't believe him are still afraid of him," added Karina quietly. "Arendelle has been at peace for so long, I think most of us have forgotten how to fight. And if fighting means getting thrown into the dungeon, leaving your family behind without anyone to look after them..." She trailed off. All hint of that brief flash of levity from moments before had drained from the room.

The shadows at the head of the table spoke again. "What about those contraptions Ragnarr had his men working on? Have you had any luck yet finding out what they're for, Josef?"

Regretfully, Josef shook his head. "A few more of the palace staff have confided in me that they overheard talk of engineers working on some mysterious project, but they couldn't offer any details. Unpleasant things tend to happen to anyone caught listening in on such conversations, so most people tend not to linger. It hasn't helped either that the work itself wasn't actually performed within the castle walls, at least from what I've been able to piece together. Someone might at least have caught a glimpse of something useful if it had been."

"Performed?" the unseen man prodded. " _Had_ been?"

Wincing, Josef nodded. "Three days ago, a cart suddenly appeared in the courtyard. None of the usual staff had been expecting any deliveries, so it caught them all by surprise. No one had time to ask any questions, though. Ragnarr's soldiers swarmed all over it almost immediately and set to work unloading a number of crates. They carried them straight through to the armory, and it was locked the second the last of the crates was secured inside. Since then, there have been two soldiers guarding the doors at all times, day and night."

"Pfft! That could have been anything!" the silver-haired old lady said dismissively. "Ragnarr might have simply found another hidden store of weapons and decided it best to keep them all under lock and key. His lock and key, of course. Oh!" She blanched, then looked about worriedly. "Are all our caches accounted for?"

But Josef was already shaking his head. "No, that wasn't it. Some of the soldiers were talking on their way back to their usual posts after the unloading had finished, and a member of the cleaning staff overheard one of them say, 'Well, it looks like the engineers finally managed to save themselves from another lashing, eh?' So it seems like they've finished whatever they've been working on... and it's inside those crates."

"So it's a weapon of some kind?" asked the young man seated to Josef's right. "I mean, since they stored the crates inside the armory and all."

"Not necessarily," replied Pauli. "The armory is the most secure room inside the palace proper – at least as strong as any of the cells down in the dungeon. If I were Ragnarr and if I wanted to protect something valuable while still keeping it close at hand, I would probably lock it in there, too."

"What did these crates look like? How big were they?"

Josef again looked in the direction of the disembodied voice and shrugged. "They weren't all the same size. I'd say they varied somewhere between a meter and a meter-and-a-half long. Maybe sixty or seventy centimeters wide and about as tall."

"Did they seem to be heavy? How many men did it take to carry each one?"

"Usually just one, though the bigger ones sometimes took two. I couldn't really say for sure if that was because they were heavier or just more awkward for one man to maneuver by himself."

"Were there any markings on the crates?"

"I didn't see any, nor did anyone else I talked to. At least, nobody mentioned any."

"Hmm." Josef and the rest of the people gathered around the table waited, anticipating more questions, but the speaker was apparently too busy pondering the information he already had. When half a minute passed without any further comment, Pauli once again stepped in to fill the gap.

"Ahem. Anything else to report, Josef? No? Right. Well, moving on then. Una, I assume there's still been no progress getting some message of our predicament to potential allies outside the kingdom?"

The wispy-haired woman, who had worked at the Arendelle post office for as long as anyone could remember, gave Pauli a sour look. When she spoke, her tone was decidedly defensive.

"You know there hasn't. Ragnarr still controls all the vessels that were in the harbor when he claimed power, doesn't he? He's still cordoning off the entrance to the fjord to keep anyone from getting in or out, isn't he? Still giving any ship who tries to approach some ridiculous story about the capital being quarantined due to an outbreak or some such, isn't he? Course, traffic's always slower in the winter to begin with, but there hasn't been a mail delivery in or out of here for a month or more, and no ship even leaves the harbor without his men crawling all over it."

"What about overland?" Helga asked. "Riders have been able to exchange at least a few messages with the outlying areas, like Ingersteds. Haven't we had any luck getting word out that way?"

Una shrugged. "We've tried. Sent two out hoping they might make it across the Fjellkulingborder. Not that we were all that confident we'd find much help from that direction, but we thought they might at least be able to travel to the coast from there and then make their way by sea to one of our closer allies. Now maybe they made it and maybe they didn't. All we know is that they haven't come back and we haven't seen any sign of help yet. That could mean that help is still on its way… or could it mean that it just plain isn't coming."

"Which means we have to assume that we're on our own."

That simple statement had a profound effect on those who had assembled there in the Flounder. Half of them glanced nervously about, seeking reassurance from their companions. The rest lowered their eyes, not wanting to meet anyone else's gaze. If they were honest with themselves, they had all recognized this truth weeks earlier. Hearing it put into words, though, made the fact painfully real.

They each seemed to feel the weight of the entire kingdom settle onto their shoulders. They could not rely on help coming from outside Arendelle's borders. Meanwhile, doubt and fear was making it nearly impossible to rally others to their cause from within. Attempting to coordinate with remote pockets of resistance was slow and awkward, meaning that each group had to operate largely on their own, but every time they tried to do just that, they always seemed to be thwarted in one way or another.

In that small room on a bitterly cold winter's night, it felt to them like they truly stood alone, the sole opposition to Ragnarr's reign. Worse yet, it felt like they were losing.

"When Queen Elsa comes back," said Karina in her soft voice, "she'll put everything to rights. I'm sure of it. We just have to hold out until then. We can do that… right?"

All around the table, heads nodded. Still, it was lost on no one how long it had taken for those nods to begin, nor how quickly they subsided. None there dared to say it out loud, but the words were written plainly enough on many of their faces. _If Queen Elsa comes back._

"Karina's right." The figure at the head of the table leaned forward so that the lamplight was finally able to pick out his weather-roughened features. He looked haggard. A normally well-kempt mustache had been joined by a rough and scraggly beard. His hair, which had always been cut respectably short as befitted a military man, was now catching on the back of his collar. And though there hadn't yet been time enough for stress to significantly increase the amount of gray scattered throughout the chestnut brown, he nevertheless looked as though he had aged years during that same short time.

"Arendelle has weathered the rule of terrible kings before," said Colonel Fritz Holberg, "including Ragnarr's first reign decades ago. And in the past, we've often survived by hunkering down and waiting patiently for the times to change, as they always must in the end. That King Agdar risked his own life to spare us from another twenty-odd years of his father's cruelty was the exception rather than the rule, and it proved that he possessed the perfect combination of intelligence, courage, and mercy to be one of the greatest rulers this kingdom has ever had.

"But now, here today, the fight we are facing is about more than simply removing an unjust ruler from the throne. This is about the usurpation of that throne from its rightful heir. Ragnarr boasts about how he was prepared to take us to war against the Snow Queen – to fling the lives of our brothers, husbands, and sons against her in the hope that he might be able to declare victory upon the altar of their sacrifices. Yet it was Queen Elsa who put herself in harm's way to protect both my men and innocent bystanders from the Snow Queen's magic. In that one act, she demonstrated all the same qualities that I… that we all admired so much in her father.

"I can only speak for myself, but I always had complete faith in King Agdar, and now I retain that same faith in his children. There is no doubt in my mind or my heart that they will return to us, and that when they do, they will stop at nothing until they see Arendelle set free once again.

"I know this seems like a lonely fight, my friends," he said, sweeping his gaze from face to face, "but that does not mean that we are alone. Sooner or later, help will come, and when it does, we will see Ragnarr brought low a second time. Until then, we have no choice but to soldier on. So we must aspire to the example set for us by King Agdar, Queen Idun, and their daughters. We must display the same wisdom, bravery, and compassion that they would if they were here to lead us. More than any magic or force of arms, that is what has always held this kingdom together. And that is what will save Arendelle in the end!"

Murmurs of agreement met this passionate declaration, along with a few hearty shouts of, "Hear, hear!" Even those who had been the most downhearted and depressed were now sitting up a bit straighter in their seats. Pauli in particular seemed to have grown several inches and was looking around the room with an expression of such pride and satisfaction on his face, it was as if he thought he'd been the one who had just delivered the rousing speech. Eventually, though, his love of agendas and proper order took hold again.

"Yes, yes. That's quite enough." He spoke over the many enthusiastic discussions that had broken out between neighbors regarding the colonel's words. "Order, please. Order! Thank you. Now, I believe that concludes all the business we had planned for this evening. Does anyone have anything else they'd like to add? Any other topics that they feel might need to be brought to this group's attention?" A few heads were shaken, but in the main, silence served as the general answer.

"Right then," Pauli said smartly, looking very much like he would have appreciated a gavel with which to mark the end of the meeting. "I suppose that means all that's left is to settle on the time and location of our next gathering. I don't think I need to remind anyone..."

"And yet he will anyway," someone muttered, the small bit of humor a good sign that spirits had indeed risen back to hopeful levels. Pauli shot a disapproving look in the commenter's direction before continuing as though he had not been interrupted.

"...that we should not get into the habit of meeting at regularly scheduled times, nor should we meet at the same place twice in a row. Therefore, I would propose that we hold our next conclave six days from now, which would make it a Wednesday. Would anybody like to volunteer to host the meeting, or perhaps suggest some other location where we might meet?"

Karina opened her mouth to reply. But before she or anybody else could speak, a sudden pounding noise caused half of those in the room to jump. They all turned to stare at the door, yet even though the sound had been loud enough, it most certainly had not been someone knocking on the entrance to the private dining room. Then came a shout, muffled by distance and several thicknesses of wood.

"Open up in the name of His Majesty, King Ragnarr!"

Most were still in their seats, wide-eyed in their startlement, when Fritz sprang to his feet and began gesticulating wildly.

"Out!" he ordered in an urgent rasp. "Everybody out! Now! Quickly! Through the back!"

A few, like Josef, responded instantly, launching to their feet. They immediately began urging their slower compatriots out of their chairs as well, practically dragging a few of the older members who were still too shocked to have fully absorbed what was going on. Then a second round of pounding, even louder than the first, finally spurred even the most reluctant into motion.

"How did they find us?" wheezed Una, hobbling around the table as quickly as she could while clinging to Karina for assistance.

"That doesn't matter right now," Fritz replied brusquely as he held the inner door open for the last few stragglers. "Just get out, all of you, as fast as you can."

"What if there are men at the back door, too?" asked the young man who'd been sitting beside Josef.

"Then we're trapped. But so far, they're only pounding on one, so this is the best chance we..."

"But it isn't a crime for a group of friends to eat dinner together, and they couldn't possibly have any proof that..."

"The best chance we have!" Fritz repeated in a raised voice. "Provided, of course, that you all stop talking and start moving!"

Another loud noise helped to underscore the point, for it was not a pounding knock like before. This was a single, sharp, and solid boom – the sound of someone trying to break down a door. It quite capably put an end to further questions or protests. The main dining area now emptied as everyone hurried down the adjoining hallway toward the rear exit, spurred on by Fritz, Josef, and Helga. Whoever was at the head of the line fumbled briefly with the latch, then yanked the door open. There was no shout of alarm nor call to halt, so the conspirators poured out into the street as quickly as the narrow opening would allow.

"Oh, damn!" swore Pauli, stopping on the threshold and turning around.

"What is it?" Fritz asked, having nearly collided with the older man when he'd stopped so abruptly.

"The letter from Ingensteds! I left it on the table. It's full of information about the soldiers' plans and strategies. If Ragnarr gets hold of it..."

"Go," said Fritz to Pauli. "I'll get it."

"No, I'll get it." Josef grabbed Pauli by the shoulders, spun him around, and gave him a firm push out the door. Then he turned to Fritz. "You're the only one of us who has any experience with military strategy and thinking. Something tells me that'll be more important to our cause than horsemanship."

Another boom. Josef privately marveled that this humble little restaurant was possessed of such a strong door, but he knew it wouldn't hold for much longer. "And we don't have time to argue," he added. "So follow your own advice and get going!"

Fritz looked past Josef's shoulder. "Where's Helga?"

When he glanced back, Josef let a curse slip out under his breath. He was sure the hostess had been right behind him. Now, the hallway was empty. "I'll take care of her, too," he said. And then, opting to discard all proper respect and decorum, he gathered himself. As he turned back around, he lowered his shoulder and thrust forward, catching Fritz square in the chest and sending him stumbling backwards in surprise. It was enough. Before the colonel's combat training would let him respond, Josef had slammed the door in his face and thrown the latch shut. Then he bolted back up the short corridor, skidded around the corner, and dashed into the back room.

Helga stood there, tearing the last of the sheets to shreds and feeding them into the top of the lamp. They briefly drifted down the narrow glass column until they finally met the hungry flame, where they charred and shriveled into ash.

"I'd already put the oven fire out," she explained, her panic causing her to talk much too rapidly, "and I didn't know how much time we might have left but I was pretty sure there wasn't time to start another one, so I…"

With a great, splintering crash, the stalwart door to the restaurant at last surrendered to inevitability. Josef spun around in time to see what was left of it fall to the floor before half a dozen armed soldiers came pouring in through the gap.

Helga marched past him out of the room and came to a stop two paces into the main dining area, her fists firmly planted on her hips. "What is the meaning of this?" she demanded with furious effrontery. "How dare you knock down the door of a private, well-respected establishment such as..."

"Where are the rest of you?" said the officer in the lead.

Josef, taking his cue from Helga, stepped up beside her. "What others?" he asked. "It's just the two of us."

"Of course it is. And what exactly were the two of you doing here?"

"Having dinner," Helga replied sharply. "This is a restaurant, you know."

"A restaurant whose door was bolted shut. Strange way to encourage business."

Helga shrugged. "It's been slow lately. Not many people seem interested in coming out at night in this climate." Josef couldn't quite keep his mouth from quirking at her ambiguous choice of words. "Josef's been my only customer for hours, so I just closed up early and we enjoyed a quiet meal together."

"If it was so quiet, how did you manage to not hear us when we knocked on your front door?"

"We were in the back room with the door closed. It does a surprisingly good job of keeping outside noises outside."

The officer raised an eyebrow, then leaned to one side to peer around them at the open door beyond. With a gesture at his men to keep watch over the two civilians, he strode forward, purposefully bumping into Josef's shoulder as he passed. Josef resisted the urge to glance nervously down at Helga, instead keeping his eyes focused on the soldiers who stood before him. A minute later, the officer's sharp and condescending voice spoke up from behind them.

"If it's only been the two of you here for hours," he said mockingly, "then why are there a dozen plates on this table?"

"It… was a big meal," Josef improvised. "I was really hungry."

The officer reappeared in front of them, wearing a look of cruel disdain. The hard lines of his face were not much softened by the warm light of the oil lamp he now held. Lifting the glass chimney off its metal collar, he tipped the lamp so that the ash spilled out into his empty hand. A few unburnt scraps of paper came along as well.

"I don't suppose there's any point in my asking you what this used to be," he said scathingly, "since I'm sure you'll just try to feed me more of your lies. I can only assume that what you served your other customers was better prepared." He turned his hand over and let the gray dust fall to the floor, flicking his fingers to dislodge the last of it. Then he drew himself up to his full height and delivered his next words in supremely supercilious tones.

"In the name of King Ragnarr of Arendelle, I charge you both with acts of treason and sedition, and hereby place you under immediate arrest. You will be detained until such time as a royal tribunal can be convened to assess your guilt. Unfortunately, His Majesty is rather preoccupied at the moment trying to protect the kingdom from other rabble like yourselves. As such, it may be quite a while before he will be able to find the time to hold such a hearing.

"Of course," he said, shifting into a falsely considerate voice, "arrangements could be made that would significantly reduce the length of your imprisonment, provided that you were to prove cooperative. Give us the names of the others who were here with you tonight, and you can be sure that I will let His Majesty know just how… helpful you were."

His offer was met with stony silence and two contemptuous glares.

"Very well. So be it." He made another gesture and two soldiers came forward. With a quick jerk of their weapons in the direction of the busted door frame, they likewise conveyed their message without the need for words. Josef and Helga had just enough time to share a quick look of mutual apology before they were forcibly marched out of the restaurant into the empty streets and the frigid night air. Almost immediately, Josef had to suppress a shiver. The soldiers apparently did not feel that he had any need of his winter coat, despite temperatures that were several degrees below freezing.

As the little procession made its way back toward the castle and its already crowded dungeons, Josef caught brief glimpses of faces as they peered out between the curtains of nearby windows. The commotion the soldiers had made entering the Flounder must have woken the entire street, and the curious simply could not help but check on the cause of the disturbance. The expressions he saw ranged from shock to sadness, fury to fear. Yet none moved to intervene.

That was just as well, he thought. If they had, it would only have meant more arrests this night. And after all, he and Helga had chosen to stay behind just so that their comrades would be able to escape. How would it be any better if those who'd had nothing to do with their little resistance movement ended up taking their place instead?

Though the walk was not that long, by the time they passed through the castle gates into the broad courtyard, both captives were shaking with cold. Clenching his teeth to keep them from chattering, Josef nevertheless spared a glance over at the stables off to his right. In that strange way in which the human mind often works in times of crisis, he suddenly found himself worrying more about the horses there than in his own fate. As much as he trusted the other men and lads, he considered the welfare of those animals to be his personal responsibility. Yet, because of his actions, he would be left unable to care for them. In his efforts to help so many, he would now be letting down these few.

 _Wisdom, bravery, and compassion._ Colonel Holberg's words returned to him as the soldiers escorted their prisoners through the doors of the palace. At that moment, he did not feel particularly smart nor especially brave. Still, he supposed one out of three was something – a beginning, at any rate. Moreover, as he and Helga were none-too-kindly prodded in their backs as they made their way down the stone stairs to the dungeons, he supposed he was also getting a first-hand lesson in courage. He could only hope that, if they all made it through this nightmare in one piece, perhaps he would have gained some small amount of wisdom as well.

And then, the cell door slammed heavily shut behind him.


	30. Whither the Wind Blows

"Then she screamed. The next thing I knew, she hit me so hard that I fell over, rolled off the container I'd been standing on, and dropped right off the side of the sleigh. By the time I got myself together, they were gone."

Olaf looked uncharacteristically morose as he sat on the open tailgate of Kristoff's sled and finished his account of everything that had happened since he'd left Arendelle with Anna and the Snow Queen. Rohl had managed to guide them through the blizzard to a nearby rock formation, which had provided some measure of shelter from the storm. At least in its lee, they were protected from the worst of the winds and were able to make themselves heard without needing to shout.

Kristoff hadn't even considered suggesting that Elsa use her magic to wall in the rest of the alcove in which they had hidden. In her current emotional state, it was a minor miracle that she was able to keep any control over her powers at all. As it was, he'd observed strange symptoms ever since they'd found Olaf. One minute, the snow in a large radius around them would stop, hovering in midair and refusing to descend to the ground. The next, it would start swirling in rapid circles, in all defiance of the prevailing winds. The bed of his sled, which had been covered in perfectly smooth ice when they'd left the troll's grotto, was now coarse and spiky like hoar frost. And the bench had begun to rattle again.

Elsa herself had barely uttered a word the entire time. Kristoff hadn't even been able to get her up onto her feet once he'd found her on her knees next to Olaf. In the end, he'd had to pick her up and carry her bodily back to Sven and the sleigh. He'd laid her down in the cargo area because he didn't trust her to stay upright sitting on the driver's bench. She had remained there the entire time they had traveled through the storm. She was still curled up there now.

So it had been Kristoff who'd prodded the little snowman into telling them his story, once they had reached this spot where the howling of the wind was somewhat muted. Now he stared at Olaf and felt an odd sense of numbness where his heart should have been. He had taken in every word, listened to the description of every event, waiting to find the glimmer of hope for Anna that would galvanize him forward on the next stage of their quest. Instead, what he had heard was…

"She's forgotten everything?" His voice sounded so dead, even to his own ears, that he barely recognized it.

Olaf nodded. "First her parents, then you and the trolls. I think at the end, the Snow Queen took all that was left. And when she forgot..." He broke off and looked guiltily at Elsa, but he seemed unable to find any other way to say it. He gulped, lowered his head, and then continued. "When she forgot Elsa, I guess she forgot me, too."

"So when she opened her eyes, it was like she was seeing you for the first time," Kristoff added, connecting the dots. "And the first time she saw you, she screamed and kicked your head clean off."

Olaf looked up, his eyes full of a desperate need to hope. "But then, that means she's still Anna, right? She reacted exactly the same way both times, so she must still be herself! She just… she just doesn't remember who that is."

"I don't know, Olaf. Maybe." His voice remained so leaden, however, that it had little chance of convincing anyone. It seemed to him that just about anyone might have a similar response to their first encounter with a walking, talking snowman.

"Excuse me," piped up Rohl. Apart from guiding Kristoff and Sven through the blizzard, he'd been nearly as quiet as Elsa. In fact, he had acted much like a stranger at a funeral, intruding upon a grief he could neither share nor completely understand. Kristoff had been so wrapped up in his own worries, he'd very nearly forgotten that the troll was still there with them.

"Excuse me," he said again, "but when you were telling your story to Milda and Grand Mahble, didn't you say that your steward… What was his name? Karl? Kevin?"

"Kai," Kristoff offered dully.

"Yeah, him. Didn't you say that the Snow Queen took all his memories, too? But then he got them back, right?" Kristoff nodded absently. "Well then, what's the problem? Even if she did take Anna's memories, there's no reason to think that they can't be brought back. After all, if it worked that way once..."

"But it didn't work that way for Queen Olavine, remember?"

"Wait, Queen… who? And what's this about Kai and the Snow Queen?"

Kristoff turned back to the snowman. "Sorry, Olaf. I forgot that you didn't know." His shoulders sagged at the prospect of recounting the whole business yet again, especially after these latest revelations had drained him so completely. But then, perhaps the details could wait. For now, maybe a summary would do.

"Apparently, the Snow Queen abducted Kai when he was just a boy. We have no idea why. But Gerda went after them. When she finally found Kai in the Snow Queen's palace, he didn't even recognize her because he had lost all his memories, just like Anna. Yet when she held him and cried for her friend, somehow something happened to break the spell, and all his memories came flooding back."

Olaf's face brightened. "So that means…"

Kristoff held up a hand and shook his head. "During our pursuit of you and Anna, we were stopped by soldiers in the kingdom of Kråkeheim, because they mistakenly thought that Elsa was the Snow Queen. It turned out that, on her way to Arendelle, the Snow Queen had passed through Kråkeheim. And while she was there, she took away all of their queen's memories back to when she was just a very young woman. Nobody knows why she did that either, since Queen Olavine could no longer remember the encounter herself. But despite King Ulrik's love for his wife and tears over her fate, her memories didn't return. Before we left, we sent them to Grand Pabbie in the hope that maybe he could help, but we don't know for sure if even that will work."

"Oh." And just like that, Olaf's face fell again.

Rohl looked back and forth between the two of them. "Yeah, but… what was all that stuff about, 'the head can be persuaded'? I mean, it's not like the Snow Queen froze her heart or anything. Every troll knows that the heart can be a tricky thing, but we are just talking about her head here, right?"

"Even the head has limits," Kristoff said with a sigh. "Grand Pabbie altered Anna's memories when she was a girl so that she wouldn't remember Elsa had magic, but now he says that he can't change them back. So I don't know. Maybe the Snow Queen's powers work differently on children than they do on adults. Maybe there's still a way to get Anna's memories back, but maybe… maybe there…"

"What does it matter?"

They all turned in surprise. Kristoff had, in the past, heard sounds of both joy and sadness in Elsa's voice. He had heard anger and fear, worry and stony determination. He had even heard her close to despair. But never had he heard such bitterness as he had in those four words.

"Elsa?"

She had barely managed to push her torso up off the bed, her arms trembling with even that small effort. Now she lifted her bowed head to look at them, and Kristoff suddenly felt his heart again… as an iron fist clamped itself around it. Her expression was so lost, so desolate, she might have been a specter from beyond the grave. There didn't seem to be any life left in her eyes. Her pale skin somehow seemed wan and waxy. Long locks of hair hung limply down in front of her face, yet either she didn't notice them or else couldn't be bothered to care. She appeared like a drowned soul, staring up from the bottom of an impossibly deep lake. The strength of her anguish was absolutely terrifying.

Kristoff wanted desperately to say something to ease her pain, but he could barely breathe around the sudden constriction of his throat.

"What does it matter," she repeated again, "whether it's possible to restore Anna's memories? What would it matter if the Snow Queen just changed her mind and decided to give them back to her? What does it matter when we have no way to find either of them? What does it matter when I will never see my sister again?"

"But..." Rohl began.

"Not now, Rohl," Kristoff snapped, recovering a hoarse approximation of his voice. He clambered up onto the sled and moved quickly to Elsa's side. With some difficulty, he helped her to sit up, propping her back against one of the side walls. Almost immediately, however, she drew her knees up and buried her face in them, unwilling to face him or any other part of the world that had visited this cruelty unto her.

"Elsa," he said as soothingly as he could manage, "it's not over yet. We can still find Anna."

"How?" Though her voice was muffled, it was not enough to hide her pain. "My magic is useless now that Olaf isn't with her. She could be anywhere. We don't even know where to start."

"Neither did Gerda," he pointed out, "but that didn't keep her from finding Kai."

"Only because she happened across someone who knew where the Snow Queen lived," Elsa mumbled into the folds of her skirt. "But we haven't seen anyone for days besides the robbers and the trolls, and I don't think Milda will help us again."

"But..." Rohl tried a second time. When Kristoff shot him a dangerous look, though, he held his hands up defensively in front of him and lapsed back into silence.

"Then we'll find someone else," he said bracingly to Elsa. "There have to be other people who live nearby. Otherwise, who would Milda's gang have to rob? And didn't she say that some of those people have seen the Snow Queen passing through? Maybe one of them knows where she goes back to after her travels."

"She also said that everyone is terrified of the Snow Queen. No one would have followed her back to her castle. They would have run the other way."

"Well then, if they tell us which way they ran, we just go in the opposite direction!" Kristoff tried his best to sound hopeful rather than frustrated – or, worse yet, scared sick – but it wasn't easy. He hadn't come this far just to give up on finding Anna now, but that didn't stop an annoying, nagging little voice from whispering to him that Elsa was right.

Gerda hadn't been able to remember exactly how she had gotten to the Snow Queen's palace. She'd only been a child, after all, and several score of years had passed since that adventure. Yet even if she had, he wondered how any directions could have been much help in navigating the vast, bleak plains of ice and snow this far north. There were few reliable landmarks of any kind and, as in a desert, the landscape constantly shifted with the wind and weather. Unless they got as lucky as Gerda herself had and managed to find somebody who could guide them where they needed to go, they could wander aimlessly for years and never find anything.

And speaking of annoying, nagging little voices…

"Ahem. Excuse me." For the third time, Rohl attempted to insert himself into the conversation. Kristoff couldn't even muster the wherewithal to put him off, neither with words nor with another glare. Instead, he did his best to simply ignore him. He needed to concentrate. There had to be some way to find the palace. There had to be a way to rescue Anna. There had to be something they were missing, if only he could get past his own worries and doubts long enough to find it.

"I said, 'Ahem.'"

He couldn't help it. Kristoff's anger and frustration at their seemingly hopeless situation flared up like a volcano, erupting out of him as he spun around to face the troll. "Rohl!" he bellowed.

"I know where the Snow Queen's palace is," Rohl stated in a perfectly matter-of-fact voice.

Dumbstruck. Literally dumbstruck. Kristoff knelt there gaping, his mind seized up like a badly maintained piece of clockwork. Before he was able to get the cogs turning, he heard Elsa's hesitant voice behind him. "You do?" She almost sounded afraid to be asking the question, as though doing so might somehow cause the words they had both heard to change. "How?"

Rohl shrugged. "I'm a scout. Discovering where things are is sort of at the top of the job description."

"Why…?" The gears were slowly beginning to spin up in Kristoff's brain again, though they weren't meshing properly just yet. He swallowed, then shook his head to try and clear it. When he refocused on Rohl, things were turning over just enough to let him bite out a few irritable words. "Why didn't you say something sooner?"

Rohl, looking more than a little surly, crossed his arms and glowered at Kristoff in exasperation. "Remember when I said that she was the brains? Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure the reindeer's got you beat on that score too. And probably the snowman. And a few of these rocks we're hiding under."

Kristoff bit back a retort, if only because he was now thinking clearly enough to realize just what a stupid thing it had been for him to say. "Sorry," he said instead, suitably abashed.

"I started trying to tell you back at the grotto," Rohl said, his posture loosening in response to the apology. "Of course, once Elsa got her powers back, there didn't seem to be much point. But something told me I ought to come along with you anyway, just in case. Good thing I convinced Gran to let me."

Kristoff felt a hand upon his shoulder, felt Elsa's weight as she used him for support. "You can take us there?" she asked breathlessly, pulling herself up to a kneeling position beside him. "You can take us to Anna?" He glanced over to see her staring expectantly at Rohl. With considerable relief, he also saw that hope had finally begun to bloom within her again. If her eager expression hadn't been enough to make that plain, the flush of color that was rapidly returning to her cheeks certainly was.

Rohl nodded. "Yeah, I can show you the way. It really isn't all that far. Might take us four days, give or take the weather." He peered out from their meager shelter. "Good news is, it looks like this blizzard may have just about blown itself out. With any luck, there won't be another one following on behind it."

Luck, Kristoff thought, hadn't exactly been a particular friend of theirs lately. But then again… Well, it had brought them Rohl, hadn't it? Without him, they might still be moldering away as captives of Milda and the robbers. If he hadn't taken them to see his clan, there was a very real chance that Elsa still would not have regained the use of her magic. And now, it was only thanks to him that they would at last be able to finish this final leg of their long journey.

If they all made it out of this, Kristoff vowed to himself that he would not rest until he had presented Rohl with a fire crystal at least as big as the one he had lost on their account. It was the absolute least he could do.

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" Olaf sprang to his feet and started hopping from one to the other with so much energy, his head kept parting company with his shoulders. "Let's go save Anna!"

Kristoff turned to Elsa. "You up for this?" he asked solicitously. He'd been frightened half to death by the way she had looked when they thought they'd lost the trail for good. It still seemed unlikely to him that they'd be able to rescue Anna without the need for some sort of confrontation with the Snow Queen, and if Elsa was in anything less than peak condition… After all, it hadn't even been a day yet since she'd seen her magic restored. Add her recent emotional free fall on top of that, and he couldn't help but worry about her condition.

"I'm fine," she replied with a smile that was (almost) passably reassuring. When his look of skepticism only deepened, that same smile reluctantly retreated a little. "Okay, maybe not. But I have four days. That will be plenty of time, I'm sure." Kristoff's face still remained skeptical.

Elsa blew out a breath, then ran her fingers through hair that had been well and truly disheveled by the high winds and her even higher emotions. Her eyes thus cleared of obstruction, they did indeed seem to possess greater clarity when she again locked them onto Kristoff's.

"It's Anna," she said simply. "You of all people should know what that means. There is nothing I won't do to save her. I spent nearly my entire life afraid that I might lose her because of my magic. Now, my magic might be the only thing that can set her free. Do you honestly think for one minute that I won't be ready to give it everything I have when that time comes?"

Kristoff continued to stare at her for a few moments longer. Then he abruptly pushed himself to his feet. "Right," he said resolutely. One long stride later and he was swinging first one leg then the other over the back of the sled's bench. He was already reaching for the reins even as he dropped onto the seat. "Right," he repeated. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the ice-white tailgate flip shut at a wave of Elsa's hand. She turned and gave him a grimly determined smile.

"Well then," he said with a nod, "I suppose we're off to see the Snow Queen."

Sven gave a long, throaty sort of warble – the closest a reindeer could come to a defiant roar – then started to haul the sled slowly forward even before Kristoff managed to flick the reins. As they began to pick up speed, the sound of Olaf's voice drifted forward to Kristoff's ears.

"You know, I don't think we've been properly introduced. Hi! My name is Olaf, and I like warm hugs. And you are…?"

"Really hoping that we know what we're doing," Rohl muttered in reply.

• • •

After exhausting its fury with the snow storm, the weather had decided to settle in for a good, long sulk. The sky had turned a flat, dreary, and uniform gray from one horizon to the other, beneath which they traveled steadily in the north-by-northeasterly direction that Rohl had indicated. Kristoff and Elsa both begrudged the need to stop every night, but the oppressive cloud cover blocked the waning moon so thoroughly that attempting to travel through the resulting darkness would have been folly. Besides, even though he tried to hide it, it was clear that Sven had to be exhausted from his daily labors. That much was made obvious by how quickly he fell asleep each evening, once they had made camp well after sundown. Elsa and Kristoff both did their best to follow his example, but what sleep they managed was fitful at best thanks to their restless worry.

Neither impatience nor worry had diminished much by the afternoon of the fourth day. At the reins, Kristoff tried not to let the monotony of both earth and sky lessen his alertness, though this was not an easy thing. He had always prided himself on his ability to navigate the mountains around Arendelle no matter what the weather. There had been times when he'd listened to other ice harvesters bragging to one another about how well they each knew the surrounding terrain. Never having been a boastful man, he had always stayed out of such conversations. When he heard them, though, he would usually allow himself a small smile. Privately, he was of the firm belief that, if he was somehow dropped at random anywhere in the vast mountain ranges that ran throughout the kingdom, he would know exactly where he was within seconds with just a quick glance at the nearby landmarks and the surrounding peaks.

Here and now, though, he had no idea how Rohl was managing to navigate. To his own eyes, everything looked identical in all directions – a featureless ice sheet as far as he could see, and a sky above it that was scarcely a shade different from the snow below. Yet obviously, the troll saw things he did not. Either that or Rohl was able to take advantage of senses beyond those at Kristoff's disposal, in much the same way that Elsa had been able to guide them through the whiteout conditions. Every time Rohl instructed him to make some minor course correction, Kristoff struggled to spot what it was that might have indicated that they'd drifted off track. Even so, he was never able to see anything out of the ordinary.

And then, he did.

He didn't even register it immediately when it first appeared upon the horizon, for it was of a color with the rest of the world at this latitude. When he finally did realize that something new had appeared, his initial thought was that they must be approaching the foot of a glacier. After all, what else could such a massive wall of snow and ice possibly be? As he continued to examine it, though, his brow furrowed. Never had he heard of a glacier with sides so perfectly straight and flat. It took another full minute before his mind was finally willing to accept what his eyes were telling it.

"Elsa," he croaked.

"And she really got that upset when she found out that it had been Grand Pabbie who'd changed Anna's memories?"

"Yup," Olaf replied. He and Elsa were in the back of the sled, comparing notes for about the umpteenth time. It was fortunate that the snowman seemed perfectly happy to retell the same story over and over again, because that's exactly what Elsa had insisted he do. She wanted to know every possible detail she could about the Snow Queen, just in case some seemingly insignificant nuance might prove vital in the confrontation to come.

"Elsa," Kristoff said again, louder this time. "You need to see this."

"Hmm?" she asked. He didn't turn around, but he heard the noises she made as she shifted position to peer over the bench and past his shoulder. "See what?"

"I think we're here," he said as he pointed a finger straight ahead. Beside him, Elsa gasped.

The wall, it turned out, was not perfectly smooth after all. Only distance and the flat light had made it appear so. As they both continued to stare, shapes began to become discernible. Majestic columns rose up at regular intervals along its length, flush with its surface. Above some of these, massive arches curved from one to the next. Others looked more like impractically narrow turrets, similar to those in the walls that surrounded Arendelle Castle, though what use a turret could be that was the scant diameter of an architectural column, Kristoff couldn't imagine.

His eyes kept sweeping along the base of the structure in search of some opening. Surely there had to be some way inside – windows or doors or… something – but he couldn't see any such thing. The thought crossed his mind that maybe they were approaching the castle from atop a rise and that any doors might still be hidden behind it. If that were the case, then the entrances ought to be coming into view any minute now.

But a minute passed, then two, and still no openings were visible. Meanwhile, the wall itself seemed to have barely grown any larger to their eyes. Kristoff felt a rising dread as a different thought occurred to him. This felt exactly like spying a far-off mountain and, seeing its already immense size, becoming convinced that you must already be nearly to it even though you really had many leagues yet to travel before you would reach its foot.

"Just how big is this place?" Elsa murmured beside him. Apparently, she had reached the same conclusion.

"My clan's scouts have completely explored every cave system within two weeks' journey of home," Rohl offered, his voice awed and almost reverential. "You'll have to believe me when I say that's a lot of caves, and some of them took us years to thoroughly map out. All of them together would fit inside the Snow Queen's palace with room to spare."

"How are we ever going to find Anna in that?" Kristoff wondered aloud. No sooner had the words left his mouth than he regretted giving voice to them. They would find Anna, he told himself. Somehow, they'd find a way. They had to.

Elsa didn't offer any answer of her own to his question, though. Even Olaf seemed at a loss for words.

By the time Sven brought the sled to a halt at the base of the fortress – palace now seemed far too diminutive a word to describe the place – numerous openings had indeed become visible in the imposing wall. However, only by craning their heads back so that they were looking nearly straight up could they make out the uppermost ramparts. Distance and the unchanging gray-white of the overcast sky made it all too easy to believe that the edifice simply rose up forever. The effect was sufficiently disorienting that none of them could even hazard a guess at exactly how tall the structure truly was. The best measurement that Kristoff finally settled on in his own mind was simply immense.

"Should we knock?" Olaf finally offered into the pregnant silence, though he still chose to speak in a hushed voice. The weight of all that snow looming over them somehow made it seem disrespectful to even think about talking at normal volumes.

"On what?" Kristoff asked back. "I don't see any doors."

"Plenty of windows, though," Rohl pointed out. "And they all appear to be open. No glass in them. Or ice, or whatever it is you'd expect a Snow Queen to use to keep the wind out."

"Why bother when the cold doesn't bother you anyway?"

"Fair point," Rohl conceded. "But maybe one of those could be our way in. Assuming we can find one that we can actually reach, of course." For though there were indeed windows aplenty, the lowest were at least three meters above their heads.

"You know, we might not have to look that far," Kristoff mused thoughtfully as he scanned the bottommost row of openings. "We don't actually need a lower window so much as we could use a nice set of steps. Elsa, do you think maybe you could…?"

He broke off when he turned to look behind him and found the cargo bed empty except for Olaf and their one basket of food. "Elsa?"

"Um, over there." Olaf pointed, and Kristoff swiveled around to follow the snowman's finger.

"Elsa? What are you doing?"

She was standing in front of a blank stretch of wall, halfway between two of the ludicrously broad pillars that were now revealed to each be as big around as the tallest tower of Arendelle Castle. Her back was to her companions, so they could not see her face. Even so, they had no trouble hearing her answer to Kristoff's question.

"Knocking."

Before anyone could say anything more, Elsa stretched her arms out in front of her and pressed her bare palms flat against the wall of snow. A flash of blueish light exploded outward from beneath her fingers, shooting across the surface and marking out the shape of an enormous snowflake centered around her hands. Fine traceries of glittering magic grew vertically, both upwards and downwards, from each of its six points. The lines on either side descended straight to the ground, but as they shot upward, they each began to curve inward as well, until they at last met at the center line, forming the apex of a pointed arch.

With almost deceptive ease, Elsa took a single step forward, pushing the double doors open wide as she did so. Then she turned to look back over her shoulder.

"Anyone coming?" she asked.

Olaf immediately bounded over the side of the sled and scampered to Elsa's side, giggling quietly as he went. Kristoff and Rohl were a bit slower, taking a moment to first exchange looks with each other. "You get used to it," Kristoff said with a shrug.

"Really?" Rohl asked dubiously.

"No."

All the same, he dismounted and quickly set to work unhitching Sven. Part of him would have preferred leaving the reindeer right where he was. If they ended up needing to make a quick getaway, he would almost certainly rue even the few seconds it would take to reattach the shafts to Sven's harness. On the other hand, he couldn't just leave his friend behind either, all alone and too encumbered to defend himself against anything – or anyone – that might take an undue interest in him. Besides, when he'd gotten Elsa to promise early on in their journey that she would allow him to accompany her into the Snow Queen's lair, he'd secured the same privilege for Sven as well. He wouldn't go back on that promise now.

And so, the five of them walked together through the newly made doors and into the labyrinthine corridors beyond.

"Alright, which way?" Kristoff wondered.

At the exact same time, Olaf asked, "Do you think she knows we're here?"

Everyone looked to Elsa. Now that the time had finally arrived, it seemed unthinkable that any of them but her should take the lead. So they waited, with varying degrees of patience, for whatever insight she might have to offer.

"The first thing we need to do," she said slowly as she stood in the middle of the passage with eyes that didn't seem quite focused on anything nearby, "is close those doors."

Kristoff started in surprise at the unexpected directive, but he nevertheless moved to do as she had requested. He needn't have bothered, though. Elsa waved one hand, and the doors swung silently shut upon unseen hinges. He shivered, and not because of the cold. With their exit closed behind them, he couldn't quite shake the feeling that they also had just become prisoners in this citadel of snow.

"I'm all for good manners," Rohl said dryly as he stared at the closed doors, "but it isn't like we were letting in any draft that wasn't already here before."

"That's exactly what we were doing," Elsa replied cryptically.

Rohl and Kristoff shared another puzzled glance. Even though her eyes had slid shut, Elsa responded as if she had seen their silent exchange plain as day. "Can't you feel it?"

There was a pause before an increasingly confused Kristoff asked, "Feel what?"

"The wind."

"Well, of course there's wind," Rohl replied a bit peevishly. "With all these open windows, how could there not be?"

"That's just it," said Elsa. "With all those windows opening into this narrow corridor, wouldn't you expect the air to be swirling every which way? But it's not." She turned left and took several steps along the hall. Then she spun around and walked back past them, stopping after several paces in the opposite direction. "It's all flowing in the same direction."

Kristoff was beginning to think that there just might be something to Rohl's estimation of his intelligence after all, though he took some solace in the fact that the troll didn't appear to understand the significance of Elsa's observation any more than he did. "So?" he prodded.

Elsa opened her eyes then and looked at him. "Don't you remember Gerda's story? When she got inside the castle, she said she could barely even walk down the passage because of the fierce wind that was trying to push her back. The further in she got, the harder it blew. She said it was almost as though it was trying to keep her out of the room where Kai was being kept."

Kristoff blinked. "Wait a minute. Are you actually suggesting…?"

"That the wind will lead us to Anna?" She nodded. "I think it might. At least, I hope it will. But even if I'm wrong, it's the only idea I have. And it can't be that much worse than wandering aimlessly around this place hoping we just happen to stumble across her, can it?"

 _Well, it_ is _a plan,_ thought Kristoff grudgingly. _A slightly crazy plan based on the thinnest of evidence, a whole lot of guess work, and probably more desperation than any of us wants to admit._ Still, it wasn't like he had any better ideas to offer. At least it gave them a direction in which to start their search, and that had to be an improvement over just standing around waiting for something more useful to drop into their laps.

"Okay, then," he said with more enthusiasm than he really felt. Tugging off one mitten, he stuck his index finger into his mouth, sucked on it for a second, then held it up to get the best possible feel for the direction of the airflow around them. Satisfied with the result, he pulled the mitten back on and nodded once at Elsa. "I guess we know which way to go." She offered him a hopeful smile in return.

"This way!" they both said, before heading off in completely opposite directions.

"Where are you going?" each asked as they stopped and turned around.

"You said that Gerda found Kai by walking into the wind," Kristoff pointed out as calmly as he could manage. "You said that it was trying to keep her from reaching him."

"Exactly," Elsa agreed.

"Well then, shouldn't we be heading into the wind too?"

Elsa's face twitched, a slight tightening around the eyes that might have been a wince just barely held at bay. "You're forgetting one thing," she said, her voice tinged with a combination of sadness and resignation. "The Snow Queen _wants_ me to find her, remember? She doesn't want to keep me out. She wants to draw me in."

That thought certainly did nothing to make Kristoff happier with their situation, nor with Elsa's proposed plan. Still, he gestured down the passage in the direction in which she had headed. "Lead on," he said.

They moved off together in a tight group, nobody fond of the idea of getting separated or being left behind. Nerves kept further conversation to a minimum as they listened intently for the sound of anything approaching along one of the cross-corridors. But into the ensuing quiet, Olaf's guileless voice nevertheless made itself heard.

"So I guess that means she knows we're here, huh?"

• • •

What doubts there might first have been about Elsa's hypothesis did not survive for long. By the time they reached the third branching intersection at which air flowed in from every direction save one, it became pretty clear that no natural phenomenon could account for such peculiar behavior. They also began to experience the same pattern that Gerda had described, only in reverse. The further along they went, the stronger the air currents behind them became, to the point where they eventually had to struggle just to keep from being knocked off their feet by the wind at their backs. Olaf in particular had to take great care to walk directly in front of Kristoff. Without that broad body to act as a shield, the little snowman might well have been picked up and blown to pieces.

By the time they finally reached the end of their road, even Kristoff was practically spit out of the last corridor into the cavernous hall of sparkling ice and glittering snow. Only Sven managed not to stumble too badly, but no one took much notice of that fact. Instead, their attentions were all fixed on the throne of ice that stood in the exact center of the chamber, and on the figure who sat upon it.

"You made it at last," said the Snow Queen in a voice that carried easily throughout the hall yet was somehow clearly meant only for Elsa. "I had almost begun to worry that you had gotten lost along the way. Ah, but you are here now and that is all that matters. Welcome! Do make yourself at home. After all, that's exactly what this is now, isn't it?"

Elsa, who was standing slightly ahead of everyone else, glanced back at them then. Kristoff squared his shoulders and nodded his encouragement. Along with the resolute look on his face, that simple gesture made it crystal clear that they were all ready to follow her lead, no matter what that might be.

Facing forward again, Elsa took a deep breath. Then, she began to stride purposefully across the distance separating door and throne. Her eyes locked with the Snow Queen's as she went, but she did not say a word until less than a dozen paces remained between them. There she stopped and, feeling the presence of her friends directly behind her, directed her most regal and authoritative mien at the other woman.

"Where is my sister?" she asked coldly. "Where is Anna?"

The Snow Queen tutted in disapproval. "Really? All the things I could teach you, all that you could learn from me, and that's the first thing you ask? I must say, I am disappointed."

"You shouldn't be," Elsa replied. "You kidnapped her because you knew perfectly well that it was the only way you would get me to come here. Well, now I'm here, and so I ask you again: Where is Anna?"

"Oh, she is close," said the Snow Queen, sounding completed bored with this particular thread of conversation. "I can summon her, if you insist."

Restraining both the disgust and fury that this woman so readily engendered within her, Elsa nodded curtly. "I do."

"Very well, then." The Snow Queen lazily lifted one hand and, without turning around, beckoned over her shoulder with two fingers. From a shadowed opening in the far wall that might have been the entrance to yet another hallway or merely a deep-set alcove, a figure emerged. Elsa's eyes moved to follow its methodically slow approach.

At first glance, it appeared to be a mere snow golem like those that had attacked the Guardsmen in the palace courtyard. At least it was also entirely white from head to foot. As it drew nearer, however, it became clear that this one was different. It was not a mere construct of snow in the shape of a man. Instead, it was completely encased in what looked like a medieval suit of armor. But while the surface readily caught and reflected the diffuse light in the vast chamber, this was not the highly polished metal that Elsa had grown up seeing in the halls of the palace. Instead gauntlets and greaves, breastplate and pauldron, helm and visor all appeared to have been forged entirely out of opaque plates of ice.

Elsa waited with growing impatience at the figure's ponderous progress. She realized that her fingers had curled into fists, but this time, she felt no need to relax them. Having hit Milda with all her strength once before, she somehow didn't fear the thought of using them again as much as she once might have. In fact, if the opportunity presented itself, she realized now just how much she would relish the opportunity to drive her knuckles into that annoyingly smug face that continued to watch her from its throne.

At long last, the figure halted by the Snow Queen's elbow. Elsa continued to wait, expecting the minion to be ordered off to retrieve Anna from wherever she was being held. At this close distance, she could pick out every detail of the ice armor, and as she did so, something began to stir in the back of her mind. Something about it looked oddly familiar, though she could not yet quite place it. Then again, there were only so many ways to conform plates of metal – or of ice – to the human form, meaning that there were bound to be similarities from one suit to the next. That was probably all that she was seeing, she told herself. Besides, the forms and facets of armor design were hardly the most important things she should be concerning herself with at that moment.

"Well?" Elsa snapped after the silence had dragged on without the Snow Queen delivering the expected orders to her servant. "I am in no mood for your games. You said you were going to send for Anna. What are you waiting for? Send for her already or so help me, I will tear this place apart room by room until I find her." An overly grandiose boast, perhaps, but one that Elsa felt entirely capable of carrying out just then. Her entire body thrummed with power. If stubborn willpower alone was enough, then it seemed to her there would be precious little she could not do in her current state.

The Snow Queen merely smiled that smug, vaguely condescending smile of hers that seemed to teeter right on the edge of tipping into a sneer. For the first time since the five companions had entered the throne room, she took her eyes off Elsa and looked up at the armored knight beside her. She gifted it with a brief nod and another casual wave of her hand. The figure bowed at the waist. Then, still bent over, it raised one gauntleted hand. A thumb slid beneath the chin of the full-face visor and swung it upward so that it rested atop the crown of the helm. Only then did the figure straighten.

Only then did Elsa realize why the armor had looked so familiar.

Only then did her fists unclench as her entire body threatened to go limp with shock and horror.

The face that gazed blankly back at her was blue with cold. Its eyebrows had turned white with frost while the lips had darkened until they were nearly black. All warmth, all life had been drained away. The eyes were flat and dead, without the slightest hint of their usual sparkle. Though they looked straight at her, there was no sign of recognition or even interest. Yet despite all these changes, it would have been impossible for Elsa not to recognize the face, even framed as it was within an icy replica of the armor that had been worn by Joan of Arc in the portrait that hung in the Arendelle palace gallery.

"Anna," she breathed. "Oh, Anna. Not again..."


	31. Queen Takes Queen

**A/N: As you may have noticed, we're reaching the climax of the Snow Queen story arc. The success or failure of this novel as a whole hinges largely on how well I'm able to pull off these next few chapters, and there are an awful lot of loose ends that need tying up. That means it's taking me longer than usual to stitch these critical pieces together, which is why my posting schedule has been somewhat erratic these past few weekends. I don't anticipate that the writing is going to get easier anytime soon either, so be forewarned. Schedule slips will continue, and may well get worse before they get better...**

* * *

It wasn't quite the same. Anna's skin, though an unnatural shade of blue, was not possessed of the same translucency. She was not frozen into a solid statue, but could obviously walk and move about freely. There was also the armor, of course. Nevertheless, the sight of her sister in such a state had sent Elsa's mind reeling back to that horrible moment upon the fjord. Now as then, she felt like her own heart had been the one to freeze. Why did this keep happening? Why was Anna constantly being made to suffer for things that were absolutely no fault of her own? _If anyone should have to pay such penance, then let it be me,_ Elsa thought. _Not Anna. I have to help her. I have to save her. I have to put an end to this right now!_

Lifting her arms straight in front of her so that they reached out toward her sister, Elsa began repeatedly curling and uncurling her fingers, as a musician might pluck at harp strings. Immediately, large flakes of ice began to peel off the armor like pieces of old wallpaper, each hovering briefly in the air before beginning a gentle descent to the ground at Anna's feet.

Elsa would have loved to simply shatter the armor, rending it into useless pieces, but she feared that Anna might get hurt if she did. She would have been content to disperse it all into insignificant nothingness like she had the giant snowflake she'd raised up above Arendelle, but she couldn't. The ice was resisting her efforts – or, more to the point, the one who had created it was.

The mound of ice chips at Anna's feet grew rapidly, yet no matter how hard and fast Elsa pushed herself, the armor remained seemingly unchanged. It was like trying to divert a river one spoonful at a time. As quickly as she stripped layers away, new ice formed to take their place. She tried tearing off larger chunks, her hands flying less like a harpist's and more like a frenzied animal scrabbling through the dirt. Even so, every bit she removed grew back in exactly the same way as had the smaller pieces. It did not take long before she was forced to admit to herself that, as much as she wanted to free her sister from this least of the Snow Queen's prisons, she was not going to able to do it this way.

The entire time she had worked, Elsa had kept her eyes locked onto Anna's. She'd been determined that, even though there was no sign of any emotion to be found there, she would feel enough for the both of them. Now, those feelings threatened to spiral downward into frustrated hopelessness and still deeper fear, even though she realized how absolutely useless such thoughts were. She stared desperately at Anna, wishing yet again that she herself shared a bit more of her sister's unbridled optimism. Anna had always possessed what seemed to be the uncanny ability to take almost any negative emotion and somehow transmute it into happiness... or at least hope. If only Elsa was able to do the same.

Then again, happiness wasn't really what was needed here, was it? This time, even hope alone might not be enough to see them through. But maybe those weren't the only options. Under these bizarre circumstances, maybe an entirely different approach was needed. And so, in the heart of the snow fortress and in the middle of its throne room, Elsa dug down deep within herself, seeking to apply a different form of emotional alchemy. This time, she would not hide from her fears. She would not run away from them, nor bury them and try to pretend that they did not exist. _Conceal, don't feel_ would not help Anna. There was only one thing – only one person – who could.

Elsa rounded on the Snow Queen and allowed everything she was feeling to burst forth. It came out not as fear or helplessness, but as an almighty rage directed squarely at the source of all her current troubles.

"You! Will bring! My sister! Back! To me!" she bellowed, her chest heaving with emotion. The shouts echoed throughout the vast hall, forming a chorus of angry Elsas that beat out their wrath upon the eardrums of all present. Kristoff jumped back a little in surprise. Sven's hooves slipped on the icy floor, and he nearly collapsed before regaining his balance. Olaf actually did fall over, or at least his torso and head did. Lucky, Rohl was able to quickly corral all the parts and put them back together before the snowman's legs and pelvis decided to make a break for it.

In fact, only two people seemed unimpressed by the outburst. Anna did not react at all, while the Snow Queen merely cocked her head and considered Elsa with a clinical eye.

"No," she replied.

"You wanted me to come here to join you," Elsa fumed, "and when I refused, you took Anna hostage to force my hand. But if you think that I will give you anything so long as my sister is in this state, then you're the one who needs to be taught a lesson!"

The Snow Queen raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. "Oh? And you think you have what it takes to teach me?"

Elsa refused to be baited. "Give Anna her memories back!"

"Her memories? Memories of a kingdom that considered her little more than an unneeded spare. Memories of how insignificant she was in most people's eyes, even to the point that, when this Hans fellow plotted to take over, he settled on her only as his second choice because he knew he wouldn't get anywhere with you.

"Memories of a mother and father who kept a lifetime of secrets from her, who lied to her and kept her a virtual prisoner in her own home. Memories of her grief that those parents, whom she loved so dearly despite all the ways that they distorted her childhood, vanished at sea and left her adrift and alone.

"Memories of the man she thinks she loves, who she trusted with her life, yet who didn't see fit to tell her that he'd seen her brought to the trolls as a child, eavesdropped on her family's private conversation, learned all about how she had been touched by her sister's magic. A man who told her none of this years later when she was struck again by the same magic right before his eyes. A man who chose to simply leave her at the castle gates even as she was on the verge of freezing to death.

"Memories of a beloved sister who couldn't even be there to help her through her mourning. Who shut her out for thirteen long years with no explanation, even though all she wanted was to be a part of her life and to make up for whatever she had done that had driven them apart. Memories of being struck in the heart by magic that you could not control. Memories of the excruciating pain throughout her entire body as it slowly turned to solid ice.

"Why would your sister want to remember any of that? How can you claim to love her and yet wish so many terrible things to be set upon her again now that she has been freed from them all?"

When their conversation had first begun, the Snow Queen's expression had been one of smug cheerfulness and mild condescension. As she'd gone through the list of Anna's memories, however, all that had faded. Now, there wasn't even the slightest trace of amusement left on her face. It had become as cold and bleak as the barren lands that surrounded her fortress.

That look unnerved Elsa at least as much as the words she had just heard, for she had seen those eyes countless times before. They had stared back at her out of the mirror in her old bedroom during the blackest and most desolate moments of her long isolation. Those had been the times when she had been absolutely convinced that Anna, her family, and indeed the entire kingdom would be better off without her – even, perhaps, that she herself would be better off if she simply ceased to exist. And yet…

"You're wrong," she said bluntly.

"Am I? Your sister told me plenty about your mutual past on our way here. After you struck her in the head with your magic, the trolls altered her memories, did they not? They made her forget. Yet you still remembered, and what did that get you? Guilt. Fear. Humiliation. Self-loathing. You hid yourself in your room and made yourself completely miserable because of the memories of what you had done.

"Your sister, who remembered none of it, was hurt, yes, but only because she remembered how close you had been before. After all, as the old troll said, he had left the fun. She clung to you because she wanted that back and could not understand why it had been taken from her. Did you ever consider what might have happened had she been allowed to forget that, too? Instead of wasting thirteen years waiting for her sister to be returned to her, perhaps she could have moved on and enjoyed something more like a normal life."

Elsa wanted to snap back at the Snow Queen, to tell her everything that was wrong with her arguments. The problem, however, was that Elsa had entertained almost the exact same thoughts many times herself. More than once during her seclusion, she had made attempts to push Anna further away, hoping that her sister would indeed be able to reclaim some measure of a proper childhood. She'd never really succeeded because it had meant too much to her to hear Anna's voice outside her door each day. Such selfish and weak-willed behavior had only made her feel all the worse about herself.

But that was missing the point entirely, she told herself as she shook her head. She realized now that her mistake hadn't been in failing to push Anna away. She had erred in ever having tried to! "No. It was our memories that held us together as a family, even when everything else fell apart. That was why Anna did so much to save me. If she hadn't remembered what we'd had before, if she hadn't believed in me – in us – then I… I might have ended up..."

"Living in a palace of ice that you built all by yourself?" The Snow Queen laughed. "There are far worse things, I can assure you. Besides, you cannot tell me that you did not enjoy it. The exhilaration of creation! The pure freedom of making a space that was entirely your own, exactly the way you wanted it, with no concern for what anyone else might think. The heady euphoria that comes from so much power flowing through you!"

"But I was all alone!" Elsa countered. "I'd traded isolation for exile without even thinking! It was only when Anna came that I realized how empty it all was, how hollow and..."

"Ah!" the Snow Queen interrupted. "So what you're saying is that you were perfectly happy on your own until your sister showed up and _reminded_ you of what you'd left behind."

"No! No, that's not..."

"Forgetfulness." the Snow Queen cut across her again, "is a blessing. Life is full of misery and tragedy, suffering and disappointment. They weigh upon the soul, dragging it down little by little with every passing hour. That which some call innocence is merely the time before we have enough memories to realize how fleeting happiness is. But as the years go by, we find ourselves gaining less and losing more. Then we look back at all the struggle, pain, and heartache that we had to endure just to earn each little minute of joy, until we eventually find that innocence itself has become just a memory."

"That's not what I was taught."

It was the first time that Kristoff had spoken since they had entered the throne room, and it actually startled Elsa to hear his voice. The sight of Anna in her current condition had driven nearly everything else out of her mind. She'd practically forgotten that she was not alone in this confrontation. Besides, Kristoff had always tended to be rather taciturn around strangers, only opening up and becoming more talkative with those he knew well.

Then again, he'd been forced to take the lead on several occasions during their adventures together, and he'd acquitted himself well each and every time. But even more importantly, this _was_ for Anna, after all.

"The night the king and queen brought Anna and Elsa to the trolls," he went on, "was the same night that Bulda adopted me and Sven. I was only eight, but that was plenty old enough for me to understand at least some of what Grand Pabbie said and did. If nothing else, it wasn't hard to figure out that he'd used some kind of magic to reach into Anna's mind and change her memories.

"Sven and I had been on our own for a while by then, so I had a hard time coming to grips with the idea that the trolls really did want us to be a part of their family. Otherwise, I might have acted sooner. Instead, months passed before I finally worked up the courage to ask something I'd been wondering about ever since that first night.

"'Grand Pabbie,' I said, 'could you help me remember my parents?'

"I sometimes think he might have been waiting for that question the entire time. At least he didn't looked surprised when I asked it. He just gave me a sympathetic smile. 'You haven't forgotten them,' he said.

"'I don't remember them as well as I used to. Their faces are sort of blurry now, and I can't remember what Papa's laugh sounded like or how it felt when Mama kissed me goodnight.'

"'You remember that he laughed, though,' Grand Pabbie said. 'And you remember her kisses. You remember the fun and you remember the love.'

"'Yeah, but that's only part of it,' I argued. 'I want to remember it all, just like I used to.'

"'But you never remembered it all,' he said. 'None of us do.' And when he saw that I was about to argue some more, he quickly asked, 'Tell me, Kristoff: do you recall yesterday's sunset?'

"I hadn't expected that. 'Sure,' I said.

"'Describe it to me.'

"'I don't know! There was lots of yellow and orange. Maybe a bit of red. I think. I'm not really sure.'

"'Well, do you remember the one from the night before?' I nodded, and then he said, 'Tell me, how were they different?'

"I had absolutely no idea, and I told him as much. So he asked me how they were the same. 'I don't know,' I stammered again. 'They were both really colorful and pretty and… They were both sunsets!'

"He nodded. 'Now, how did watching those sunsets make you feel?'

"I think I shrugged. 'Tired, I suppose. It was late. Maybe a little sad that the day was over. I still enjoyed seeing them, though, because the way they lit up the mountains was so amazing. I guess that made me feel a little small, too, and...'

"'You see?" he said then. 'Those memories are only two days old and already the details have faded. But the feelings, what they meant to you, that's still here.' He tapped my head, then my chest. 'And here. Life is full of sunsets and they're all different, yet we don't need to remember every single one. We know one when we see one, and we know what they mean to us.

"'Life is full of laughter, too, and kisses and faces. Thousands of each, and a million other things besides. Some we will carry with us forever, others will slip away. But what they mean to us, that stays. So think of your father's laugh. Think of your mother's kiss. You might not remember them exactly, but think of them anyway and tell me… what do you feel?'"

Kristoff's gaze had gone a little out of focus as he'd recounted his tale and relived it in his mind's eye. Now, though, his focus returned, and it settled sharply upon the Snow Queen.

"I felt happy," he told her brazenly. "I felt loved." Then he pointed at Anna. "You didn't just take away her memories. You took away everything they meant to her. You took her joy and her love and her laughter..."

"And her pain and her sadness and her regret," the Snow Queen snapped back. "I fail to see your point."

"The point," Kristoff replied, "is that the memories I have of my parents have faded even further now than they had back then, but the blessing isn't in the forgetfulness. I've never really forgotten them, and I never really will. They're part of who I am, now and always, and I will treasure that forever. That's the blessing."

The Snow Queen gave him a stare that seemed to say she would like nothing more than to roll her eyes at his naivety, if only such a pedestrian expression was not well beneath her dignity. "Children," she muttered. "Children who think they know what it is to be an adult and so flounce around in their parents' clothing. You have no idea..."

"And you have no right!" Elsa shot back. "No right to take a person's memories. No right to take them from Anna. I demand that you give them back right now!"

"You do not make demands of me," the Snow Queen replied coldly. "Besides, I have already given you my answer on that score. If you wish to see your sister's memories restored, then you will have to..."

"Fine!" Elsa had reached her limit. She could not abide one more second of this pointless debate. She could not stand Anna's glassy eyes staring at her, absent all feeling. The Snow Queen could not be reasoned with. There was no chance for diplomacy here. And when words failed, sometimes the only thing that remained was action. She would do what she had to do.

There were no elaborate movements, no dancing fingers. The time for careful subtlety had passed. Elsa's hands had once again become fists, and she swung her right arm in an arc not unlike the one that had ended at Milda's face. Ten paces away, the throne of ice exploded.

The Snow Queen, however, was no longer in it.

Elsa's head whipped this way and that, seeking her opponent. When the shout came from behind her, she didn't even have time to register whose voice had called out the warning. She barely had time to react at all.

"Elsa! Above you!"

She didn't even spare a moment to glance overhead. She might never have learned to fight with a sword like Anna had, but she'd had plenty of time to watch both those lessons and the Guardsmen's practice drills out in the palace courtyard from the window of her room. From that, she'd picked up at least one important lesson: never give your opponent a stationary target.

Even as she began to run, the ice around her feet was already moving, shooting upward in a surrounding circle. She did not know whether the Snow Queen was attempting to cage or wound her, or something even worse. All she knew was that she wasn't about to make any of those things easy. All the same, one of the protrusions caught her foot as she tried to evade them, causing her to trip and fall.

A mound of snow sprang straight up in front of her so that, instead of dropping to the floor, she merely stumbled into the chest-high pile and then rolled to one side. As she spun, she thrust one hand toward the distant ceiling and again clenched her fingers tightly together. There was a loud crack, and the small platform of airborne ice upon which the Snow Queen stood suddenly split in two. She teetered for a moment, and a look of mild surprise flickered over her face.

Elsa refused to allow her the time to regain her equilibrium. Even as her feet continued to move, so too did her arms. They looked to be flailing madly, but there was a method to the madness. With each swing, a large chunk of ice or hard-packed snow shot through the air straight toward the Snow Queen. She batted each of these away with a wave of her hand before they even reached her, usually shattering them to pieces. But those pieces then spun back around in tight arcs so that she was soon swarmed beneath the barrage.

The concentration required to keep track of so many incoming projectiles at once had its desired effect. The Snow Queen, whose balance had already been made somewhat precarious by the fracturing of the ice on which she stood, was finding it difficult to keep her feet beneath her. She seemed to be trying to meld the two pieces of her platform back together, but Elsa saw to it that a stream of frozen spheres the size of small cannonballs kept slamming into its underside, shaking her opponent even more and making it nigh impossible for the two pieces to be brought together long enough to effect repairs. As a result, the Snow Queen slowly but inexorably dropped lower and lower. At last, she stepped off the broken platform to stand on the floor with the rest of them, and she glared across the shattered remains of her throne at Elsa.

"Do you honestly think a level playing field is going to make any difference?" she asked.

"Not exactly,"replied Elsa. Then she took two quick steps backward and, on the third, slammed her foot down onto the icy floor.

The entire palace seemed to shake. Out of the corner of her eye, Elsa saw Kristoff grab onto Sven for support. Their lower centers of gravity meant that Olaf and Rohl merely wobbled a little, but that didn't keep them from looking any less surprised as the ground beneath them heaved and buckled. Crooked pillars shot upward. Wide and uneven holes dropped down. Other sections of the floor tilted crazily. Within moments, the perfectly uncluttered chamber had been turned into an obstacle course of ice.

"Kristoff!" Elsa shouted. "Get Anna out of here!" She couldn't look to see whether he had acted on her order, however. She'd been careless and, in the upheaval, had lost sight of the Snow Queen behind the very obstructions she herself had created. A quick glance upward made it plain that her opponent had not fallen – or risen – back upon the same trick a second time. The air above the fractured floor was empty. That still left plenty of places at ground level where she could be hiding, but at least now, Elsa would be able to take similar advantage of the terrain.

She darted sideways, hoping to slip around one of the miniature mountains that she had created and catch the Snow Queen unawares. Still, she was not terribly surprised that the far side was empty. Doubtless, the Snow Queen would be attempting to maneuver into a better position herself. They were now playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse, and Elsa was not so foolish as to believe that she was the feline in this scenario.

Without warning, a section of the frozen wall beside her shot outward like a battering ram, slamming into her shoulder and sending her tumbling. The air was knocked out of her as she hit the ground, but she didn't dare stop to catch her breath. Instead, she log rolled over and over, which was just as well. Massive slabs of ice shot up all around the spot where she had fallen so that, had she stayed there, she would have found herself trapped within a very small cell. Pushing herself to her feet as quickly as she could, she sprinted off in a random direction, hoping to avoid any predictable pattern that might work against her. Then she saw something that gave her an idea.

Ahead of her, a section of the uneven floor had rippled in such a way that it formed what looked like a few uneven steps. She changed direction and ran toward them. As her left foot fell upon the first tier, she thrust her open hands down and to either side. Immediately, an entire flight of stairs began to grow in front of her, each forming just barely in time to accept her next footfall. They spiraled higher and higher, curling around an upthrust column of ice.

A loud crack resounded behind her, and suddenly her makeshift staircase began to sway, then lean dangerously downward. She swung her right arm upward across her body and in response, horizontal beams shot outward from the pillar to tuck underneath the stairs and support them as she continued her skyward climb. Shattering noises dogged her heels as she went. Even without looking back, she knew that she had to keep moving forward because no retreat remained behind her.

At last, she stepped out onto the top of the broad column. The high ground gave her a commanding view of the massive chamber in its entirety, but she knew that she could not rely upon it for long. No doubt this tower could crumble just as easily as the steps she had used to surmount it. Besides, she was terribly exposed up here. She needed to take in everything as quickly as she could and then find some way down to a safer location.

The first thing she saw was Kristoff struggling to drag Anna across the broken ice. It wasn't the irregular footing that was causing him problems so much as the fact that Anna herself was not cooperating. Nor was she resisting, per se. She simply stood stock still, neither helping nor directly hindering the efforts to move her. While Kristoff tugged on her arms, Olaf had positioned himself behind her and was attempting to push, much like he'd done during the skating party that had followed shortly after the Great Thaw.

Tearing her eyes away from her sister and their friends, Elsa scanned the rest of the chamber, trying to catch a glimpse of the Snow Queen's pale blue robes. Unfortunately, it appeared that she had done too good of a job of creating chaos. There were simply too many hiding places, and whatever one the Snow Queen had chosen did not appear to be immediately visible from Elsa's vantage point. Still, she took the opportunity to try and build a quick mental map of the circular space, hoping that might give her some advantage when it came to the fight on the floor.

She knew her time was up when the ice beneath her feet shuddered ominously. Before she could even react, the tower had already begun to lean precipitously to one side. There was no time to create another set of stairs to scamper back down. There was, in fact, only time enough to do one simple thing. Turning, she ran in a direction perpendicular to the column's fall. Then, when she reached the edge, she jumped.

As she fell, she pulled her legs up to her chest. At the same time, she flung both arms downward, fingers splayed wide. Sparkles of magic flew downward, building and growing beneath her until…

She landed heavily upon the giant drift of snow she had conjured, tumbling down one sloping side in a far less coordinated version of the "tickle bumps" that Anna had enjoyed riding so much when they'd been little. Still, the snow had cushioned her fall enough that, at the bottom, it took her only a moment to gather her feet under her and tear off in yet another direction.

"Elsa!"

She skidded to a stop and wheeled around at the sound of Kristoff's panicked bellow. She knew full well that if she headed to his aid, the Snow Queen would know exactly where to find her and would doubtless take advantage of the situation. But what else could she do? Slipping for a moment as she fought to gain traction on what must have been the only smooth bit of floor left in the entire hall, she set off as quickly as her legs could carry her, darting over, under, and around every obstacle in her way. When she finally burst out into a clearing near the door by which they'd entered, she immediately saw what had caused Kristoff to cry for help.

At least a dozen snow soldiers, identical to those that had attacked the Guard in the palace courtyard, were blocking the exit. As she watched, another half dozen appeared to walk straight out of the chamber's snow-covered walls. A variety of weapons glistened in their hands – swords, maces, bows – and none of them looked any the less deadly for being made of ice. Kristoff, having given up trying to coax Anna along, had apparently lifted her up and thrown her across Sven's back. Now he stood facing the squad of soldiers, his eyes darting from one to the next as he feverishly sought some way past them.

"Kristoff!" Elsa called out. When he glanced in her direction, she waved her hands through the air then jabbed them out towards him. The energy that shot from her fingers coalesced upon his left arm and in his right hand. As the light faded, it solidified into a round shield and a mighty battle axe. Elsa hoped that the time he'd spent wielding an ice axe during his years of mountaineering would make Kristoff more comfortable with such a weapon than he might otherwise be with a sword.

A sound from behind her let her know that she had stayed in one place too long. Pushing off her right foot, she spun as needle-sharp shards of ice rained down upon the spot on which she had stood. Not enough to kill, she noted abstractly, so the Snow Queen still wanted her alive, but it seemed she would be willing to accept some temporarily incapacitation. Several of the frozen daggers had fallen perilously close to her companions, though. In fact, one of them had embedded itself in Olaf's back, though he didn't appear to have noticed. It seemed that Elsa could not be sure that the Snow Queen would take as much care to preserve other lives, and if she stayed here to help, she might only make matters worse. They could too easily be caught in the crossfire.

Taking advantage of the momentum of her spin, she pushed her arms outward once again, allowing her turn to sweep them across the line of snow sentries. A thin sheet of magic fanned out from her fingertips, passing harmlessly around Kristoff, Sven, and Anna, but slamming into the figures that blocked their way. Five or six torsos slowly slid to the floor, having been severed clean through by the onslaught, but the gashes left in others healed themselves almost at once. Then with a roar, Kristoff threw himself forward, his axe swinging in a mighty arc that cleaved the head off one body and an arm off its nearest neighbor. Elsa had just enough time to see Sven lower his head and charge down a third soldier, impaling it upon his antlers, before she twirled behind a slab of ice that again blocked her friends from view. She could do no more for them just then.

As soon as she'd regained cover, she turned and raced back into the heart of the mess she had created. She dodged around a massive chunk that had broken off the tall pillar when it had slammed down onto the floor. As she leaped onto a slanting ramp of ice, it occurred to her that all this running had so far gotten her exactly nowhere. Granted, she'd kept ahead of the Snow Queen, but that seemed unlikely to be enough. So far, she'd only managed to strike one serious blow, but she had managed that, hadn't she? If for no other reason than to keep the Snow Queen away from Kristoff, Anna, and the rest of her little party, she need to change tactics. She need to stop hiding and go on the offensive.

She needed to stop being the mouse and become the cat.

With a quick glance at the far off ceiling to determine her location, Elsa changed direction yet again and dove straight toward the middle of the chamber. Moments later, she stood beside the ruined remains of the Snow Queen's throne. Extending the fingers of her right hand so that they stretched out flat, she slammed her palm down onto what remained of the seat. With a great boom, the heavy slab of ice was flattened, along with everything else in a radius some five meters from where she stood. Then she turned her hand over, raised the left one as well and, her fingers curling inward, slowly lifted them above her head.

The ice around her cracked and crackled, then heaved upward in concentric circular tiers until she stood well above the original floor level with a clear view in all directions. That was the problem in this battle, after all. The ice and snow that surrounded them was ammunition both sides could bend to their will. A more traditional strategy of finding a defensible position where the enemy could only attack from one direction would be doomed to failure. The only available material from which such a fortification might be constructed could so easily be turned into a weapon by that selfsame enemy.

Now at least, Elsa had positioned herself upon a stable base that could not easily be made to topple, and she had cleared most of the ice from around herself to what she hoped would be a sufficient distance to allow her to see and respond to any attack. Granted, there was still ice beneath her feet, but here above the Arctic Circle, she would never be able to get away from it entirely. So this was the game board that she had chosen. The time had come for the players to face off, head to head and queen to queen.

"You want me?" she shouted as loudly as she could, her chest heaving. "Here I am!" She flung one arm skyward. Sparks shot out of her palm and high into the air, climbing until they had nearly reached the ceiling before they exploded in a shower of glittering snow.

Silence answered her challenge, broken only by the sound of the skirmish at the door, muffled somewhat both by distance and the intervening ice. Briefly, Elsa wondered if maybe she'd made a mistake by trying to draw the Snow Queen away from her friends. Perhaps she should have remained with them to help fight through the press of soldiers, or at least to cover their backs as they fought. The Snow Queen had already demonstrated that she wasn't above using hostages to get what she wanted. What if, even now, she was joining her troops in overwhelming the brave little band while Elsa just stood like an idiot, wildly overestimating her own self-importance?

"For someone who spent most of her life afraid of what she could do, you have wielded your powers remarkably well."

Elsa whirled around to see the Snow Queen striding forth from between two large pieces of rubble. Almost instinctively, she dropped into what she'd come to think of as her fighting stance: turned sideways to her opponent, one arm thrust forward while the other remained back near her cheek in a pose reminiscent of both fencer and archer. Somewhat infuriatingly, the Snow Queen continued to stand perfectly upright. If the fight so far had taken anything out of her, she showed no sign of it. Instead, she walked sedately forward, stopping just before the bottommost tier of Elsa's conical tower.

"Now, shall we put an end to this nonsense?"

"Are you going to let my sister and our friends leave?" Elsa asked.

The Snow Queen considered for a moment. "Perhaps. I have little use for them, so that could be negotiated, I think."

"Will you give back Anna's memories and make her whole again?"

There was no pause this time. "No," she answered with a shake of her head. "No, I will not."

"Well then..." Elsa twisted at her waist. The hand that had been held high beside her face shot forward and a blast of magic crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye, striking the Snow Queen squarely in the chest. Immediately, a thick coating of ice raced outward from the point of impact, across her shoulders, up her neck, down her arms and legs. In the span of a single heartbeat, nearly her entire body had been encased.

But nearly was not enough.

A single unfrozen finger twitched, and the ice shattered with a blast like a thunderclap. The Snow Queen stood free again, apparently unaffected by the experience but for the deep scowl that had returned to her face. "I grow weary..." she began.

"Good!" cried Elsa, and she began pumping her fists like cannons so that white sparks and blue lightning soared down the stepped slope. She barely took time to aim, opting instead to simply unload as much damage as quickly as she could. The force of her attack filled the hall with a steadily growing rumble as blast after blast slammed indiscriminately into the Queen and the ground surrounding her.

Elsa's feet started to move, and the barrage changed form. Her arms swung up and down, left and right. Slabs of ice appeared out of thin air several stories above their heads, only to slam downward with all the force of gravity and magic combined. Mountains of snow rose up like waves that crested and crashed upon the spot where the Snow Queen stood. Spikes like spears or lances shot up from the floor, their points aimed at any and every part of Elsa's adversary that they could reach. The screaming sound that came from impossibly hard bolts of ice scraping against each other would have been enough to set the hairs on the back of Elsa's neck standing on end, had her senses not been given over entirely to directing the flow of her magic.

She continued her relentless attack, ice piling upon snow piling upon ice, until the monument of her rage and fury had risen almost to the level upon which she herself stood. Only then, with the jumbled pile of wintry detritus creaking beneath its own weight as it slowly settled, did she finally slow to a stop. Her knees were shaking, her arms were trembling with fatigue, and her breath was coming in great gasps. It was all she could do to keep from slumping to her knees, having poured all her anger and energy into the massive onslaught.

But she knew she could not collapse just yet. She had to get to Kristoff and Sven, to Olaf and Rohl. Together, they had to find their way back out of this fortress and get Anna someplace where they could warm her up. She looked much like Gerda had described Kai when she had found him, and he had survived unscathed. Then again, all it had taken to restore him to health had been a bit of his friend's heartfelt affection. She could only hope that Anna would be cured so easily, unlike poor Queen Olavine.

She turned and began to stumble off in the direction from which she'd last heard the scuffle and shouts of Kristoff's fight with the snow soldiers.

The explosion behind her sent her sailing through the air and over the steps on the far side of her platform. She had just enough time to register what a foolish mistake she had made before she slammed hard into the floor below. What little breath she had been able to regain was expelled instantly from her lungs by the force of her impact, and sharp pains stabbed all through her chest as she struggled to draw air in again.

There was a tremendous boom, nearly as loud as the one that had accompanied the explosion, and the lowest tier of her tower slammed down flush with the floor. Elsa felt herself lifted a centimeter off the ground, then again as the next tier was similarly flattened. Each jolt brought fresh bursts of pain along the side that had taken the brunt of her fall. Even so, she levered herself up onto one elbow as the final tier vanished from sight.

The Snow Queen approached Elsa, her previous implacability having vanished every bit as completely as had Elsa's platform. Her blue eyes now burned with a cold fire, and her scowl had given way to a vindictive sneer.

"The games," she said in a taut voice as she towered over Elsa, "are over."

"Cannon troll!"

Elsa turned in the direction of the cry. A gray blur was already spinning rapidly down a tall ramp of ice. It shot off the end in an arc that was carrying it with great speed directly at the Snow Queen's head.

A shaft of ice erupted from the floor and caught Rohl deftly in midair, like a cue stick striking a billiard ball. His course thus redirected and entirely out of his control, he flew well over both their heads, caromed off the chamber wall, then fell out of sight behind the various slabs of misshapen ice that still littered the place. Only a horrible cracking noise told Elsa when he hit the ground. She dearly hoped it was ice and not stone that had broken.

Another series of booms, cracks, and thunderous slamming noises reverberated throughout the chamber. Each one was accompanied by a piece of rubble collapsing back into the floor, leaving a perfectly smooth and flawless sheet of ice behind it. Yet the Snow Queen did not even twitch. Not a finger moved. She simply glared down at Elsa, her nostrils flaring slightly with each breath as if in mockery of Elsa's continued attempts to inhale without pain.

Within seconds, the entire vast hall stood empty once again, as if Elsa's magic had never even touched it. Only the throne's absence served as memorial to their battle, but that was not destined to last long either. The Snow Queen glowered at Elsa for a few moments longer, then spun on her heel and strode back toward the exact center of the room. As she did so, her throne pushed up through the floor like the budding of the largest and most peculiar flower ever conceived. With a flourish of her robes, the Snow Queen turned and lowered herself onto it in one fluid motion. Then she beckoned imperiously to something over Elsa's shoulder. Wincing, Elsa pushed herself up onto her knees and looked back to see everything she had been dreading and more.

Snow soldiers were marching toward them. One held Olaf's pelvis and legs, another his torso, a third his arms, and a fourth carried his head (which was still valiantly attempting to bite at the hands that held it). Sven was being guarded by two soldiers, one tugging on his harness while another kept the tip of an ice spear pressed warningly against his throat. The spear's shaft had been broken halfway down its length. From a slightly different direction came yet another white figure with a decidedly dazed Rohl clamped tightly against its chest.

Yet the worst sight of all was Kristoff. There was no sign of his axe nor his shield. He was cradling his left arm, his right eye had been badly blackened, and he was walking with a pronounced limp. Worse than any of that, though, was his escort. Anna walked behind him, an ice sword pointedly pressing against the small of his back. She seemed no more aware of her actions than did the magical golems that guarded the other captives. Her eyes stared fixedly ahead, barely blinking, with none of the usual tiny movements that the mind normally expected to see in another human being. But Kristoff's eyes met Elsa's, and they silently exchanged entire worlds of sadness and apology.

Two more guards materialized on either side of Elsa, grabbed her beneath the arms, and hauled her roughly to her feet. She tried to shake them off and, when that didn't work, attempted to use her magic to blast their hands apart. A fine trickle of powdery snow wafted lazily from their fingers, but the Snow Queen's reinforcing magic was now too strong for her to break. At last, she gave up and focused her attentions squarely upon the wicked woman who looked back at her from the icy throne.

"Now what?" she asked, hating the despondency she could hear in her own voice. "You've won. You brought me here and you proved that you're stronger than I am. You said that you wanted me to stay with you, and it seems clear that I don't stand a chance of defeating you and escaping. So if I agree to your terms..."

"Elsa, no," Kristoff pleaded from behind her.

"If I agree to stay with you, will you still let my frie-… my family go?"

"You will stay?" the Snow Queen asked carefully. "And you will accept your fate? You will not continue to fight me, as you did just now?"

Slowly, Elsa nodded, not quite trusting herself to speak. Yet she had to. She must, because she needed to secure one last concession from her would-be captor.

"On one condition," she amended. The Snow Queen's sole response was the wary lift of an eyebrow. "You have to undo everything that you did to Anna."

"I told you before, this is something that I will not do."

"Will not?" Elsa asked, seizing on the choice of the word. "Not, 'cannot.' So your magic can be reversed? Anna can regain her memories?"

"Certainly."

Elsa felt the frustration and desperation flooding her chest again. "Then why?" Her voice came out half plea, half sob. "If you have me, if you have what you want, then why deny me this one request? You said yourself that Anna means nothing to you. Why not give her back her life? Or are you just doing this to punish me for trying so hard to resist you?"

"Of course not," the Snow Queen replied dismissively. "I rather admire such spirit, albeit only to a point. After that, it does tend to become rather tedious."

By this point, Elsa was struggling to hold back her tears. She twisted around in the soldiers' grip to look back at her sister, or at least at the cold, unfeeling, uncaring shell that she had become. It wasn't fair. It couldn't end this way! She'd given up so much of her life to protect Anna and keep her safe. Now, after everything they had both been through, after all that they had lost and all the suffering they had shared, she simply could not bear the thought of failing her so utterly at the last. There had to be something she could do. There had to be some way she could make the Snow Queen see reason!

"Then why?" she asked again, turning back to look at the woman who seemed so determined to ruin her life in every way possible. "Why won't you give Anna her memories back?"

"Because," came the answer in the calmest, most maddeningly rational tone Elsa had ever heard, "it is a task that you must accomplish yourself."


	32. One in a Billion

A warm spark of hope ignited within Elsa's chest. "You… you'll let me do that? You'll let me restore Anna's memories? And it will actually work?"

The Snow Queen eyed Elsa curiously before nodding. "You may make the attempt. As to whether you will succeed, I suppose we shall all find out, no?"

Elsa made a show of trying to tug free of the grip the snow soldiers had upon each of her arms. "I don't see how I can do it like this," she said, wishing she could have sounded defiant but satisfied that it at least hadn't come out as petulant.

A long moment passed while the Snow Queen considered the request. Then she indolently flicked a finger. A foot-long dagger suddenly appeared in the hand of the golem that was gripping Elsa's right arm. It released her, but then immediately stepped backwards, spun around, and pressed the glistening blade of ice against Kristoff's throat.

"Someone must maintain the guard on your friend," the Snow Queen explained lightly. "We would not want him getting any more heroic ideas while you and your sister are otherwise occupied. You may put that away now, dear." She gestured to Anna, who immediately removed the tip of her sword from Kristoff's back and slid it neatly into its scabbard in a single, fluid motion. Shifting her weight slightly, she adopted a more neutral position, much like the parade rest that Arendelle soldiers maintained during a lengthy inspection. Though not as rigid as a guard at attention, the pose's stiffness was still so out of character for Arendelle's princess that, if Anna's face had not been visible, Elsa could almost have believed that a stranger stood in her place.

Then again, at least at that moment, it might as well have been true.

She jerked her left arm again and, this time, it easily came free. She gave the figure that had held her one brief, withering look. Though it was a nearly flawless recreation of the human form from head to toe, it still seemed to her to be far less human than Olaf ever had. It was little more than a puppet for the Snow Queen's amusement. There was no life there, no mind nor soul. _No memories,_ she realized. _Just like Anna._

The thought that her sister could have anything in common with these wretched things left Elsa feeling far colder than any winter wind ever had. She looked back at Anna's face, and her stomach clenched painfully. This had to work. She had to bring back Anna's memories. There could be no crueler fate for someone as warm and full of life as Anna than to live out the rest of her days in such frozen emptiness.

Hesitantly, burdened by all that rested upon her next actions, Elsa moved to stand before her sister. Once there, she tried to look into Anna's eyes, but even when she positioned herself directly in front of them, they seemed to stare right through her. There wasn't even the connection that a person would give a total stranger who had approached so closely. Elsa felt a lump settle in the middle of her throat that made it equally as hard to swallow as to breathe.

Reaching up, she laid a hand against the side of Anna's face, but her fingers merely pressed against the cold rings of the mail curtain that descended from the helm to cover both neck and shoulders. That wouldn't do. Cold though her own hands might be, she needed Anna to feel her presence. She needed to be able to impart whatever small warmth she had to give. So she slid her fingers down until they found the bottom edge of the mail, then slipped them underneath and inside. Her other hand joined the first, and together they began to slowly lift the aventail. Half expecting to hear a sharp word of protest from behind her, she carefully slid it up and over Anna's chin and nose. The helm began to tip backwards, and she disentangled one hand from the links to catch and support it. A few seconds later, the whole thing slipped free. Elsa let it fall to the floor, hoping it might shatter, but the impact brought only the light jangle of mail and the dull clack of solid ice meeting more of the same. Once again, she lifted a hand toward Anna's face.

It stopped mere inches away. Elsa stared, willing her fingers to complete their journey to Anna's cheek, but they seemed unwilling to budge. For an instant, she thought that the Snow Queen was somehow using her magic to hold her arm in place. When the true cause finally hit her, it was nearly enough to break her.

There stood Anna, her skin blue and her eyes empty, upon a flat expanse of ice that extended in every direction until it disappeared into whiteness. Elsa's body was battered and bruised from the battle she had just fought and lost. And there was her hand, hovering next to her sister's frozen face, poised to offer a caress of sorrow, grief, and regret.

Her recurrent nightmare had been given form, transformed into vivid and painful reality. Now, some part of her was terrified that the ending would also be the same.

Always in that dream, she had been helpless to save Anna. Always, no matter how many times she revisited it, nothing she did was ever able bring her sister back. Her powers failed her. Her pleas for help went unanswered. Her prayers to unseen gods were ignored. Always, without fail, her final touch brought her to the same inevitable, unavoidable outcome. At the end of her nightmare, as her hand rested upon her sister's cheek, Anna's fate became her own.

Elsa's hand had not stopped moving completely. It was visibly shaking, and she could not get it to hold still. The Snow Queen wanted her to remain here in this snow fortress so that she might become an… an heir or disciple or whatever. But considering how hard Elsa had resisted that idea, might the Snow Queen now be willing to resort to more extreme measures to ensure that she got what she wanted? She'd already demonstrated a willingness to wound during their battle. Might she, in the interest of keeping her newly acquired charge both docile and obedient, decide to strip Elsa's memories just as she'd done to Anna? Could this all be a trap?

From the stories Kai, Gerda, and Olaf had all told, the Snow Queen's memory magic required direct contact with its victim, usually in the form of a kiss. But did they know for certain that was the only way it could work? Was it possible… Could the Snow Queen have left some of her power in Anna – in her very skin – the way Olaf carried a bit of Elsa's magic around with him? Was that why she'd insisted that Elsa make the attempt to restore Anna's memories? Could it be that, if they did touch, Elsa's waking nightmare would be complete? Would she end up just like Anna, hollow and empty, a clean slate upon which the Snow Queen could create whatever she desired?

Would it matter if she did?

She had meant it when she'd offered herself in exchange for Anna's freedom. Her sister's safety mattered most to her now. It always had. As long as Anna was protected, Elsa could endure almost anything. Hadn't she proven that? They had both survived thirteen years separated from each other. This time, they would just be kept apart by a bit more than the thickness of a door.

Anna would still have Kai and Gerda and the rest of the palace staff. She also had Kristoff and Sven and all of Arendelle now, too. She would not lack for love. So long as Anna could live a long, happy, and healthy life, Elsa would give up anything. She would give up everything.

But could she trust the Snow Queen? That was the question. Would she keep her word? For that matter, what word had she given? She'd promised to let Anna and the rest go, provided that Elsa stayed. She had pointedly not promised that Anna would be returned to her normal self – not unless Elsa found some way to make that happen. If this was a trap, if Elsa did in fact lose herself with this attempt, then Kristoff could walk out of this fortress with the empty shell that had once been Anna, and the Snow Queen would not even have told a lie.

 _No!_ she told herself firmly. _No, it was only a dream! It wasn't a premonition. It couldn't have been. You can't let fear define your world again. You have to do this. You have to at least try. If you do, you might fail. But if you don't, then there's no hope left for Anna at all! You have no other choice!_

Her fingers gave one last, spasmodic jerk, then stilled. She pulled her eyes away from her hand and gazed upon Anna's face again. Then, hardly daring to think, she willed her arm to traverse that last short distance.

The instant her fingertips touched Anna's bare skin, Elsa lost herself. It wasn't her memories that left her, though. The composure she had held in tight check ever since they'd arrived outside the palace vanished in a flash. The sense of touch was so powerful, so much more immediate, that it overwhelmed her. Logic and reason no longer mattered. For the second time in her life, Elsa felt skin colder than her own… and now, as then, it was Anna's.

Tears welled up and spilled from her eyes. Her chin trembled. Her right hand flew up to cup the other cheek. Then her mouth fell open and a single, massive sob shook her entire body.

"Anna!"

She flung herself upon her sister, wrapping her in her arms and drawing her into a tight embrace. That Anna remained stiff and unresponsive only tore all the more violently at Elsa's already decimated emotions. She hugged Anna like she never had before. Gone was the awkward tentativeness born from their long years of estrangement. Gone was any fear of what might happen should her powers slip. Even after Anna's miraculous thaw, Elsa had been so shocked with disbelief – so afraid that it couldn't possibly be real and that, if she held Anna too fiercely, she might yet shatter in her arms – that she'd unconsciously restrained herself.

Now, however, she pulled Anna to her with every ounce of strength she possessed. It was a mad and desperate embrace of the kind only shared by two kindred souls who, having been gifted with the incredible fortune to find one another amid the vast sea of humanity, now foresee a parting and fear that it might be forever. That it was not returned only served to strengthen its ferocity.

Tears rolled down Elsa's cheeks and fell onto Anna's shoulder where they froze, adding an imperceptible thickness to the armored pauldron. The two swayed slightly as Elsa rocked back and forth in time to her sobbing breaths. "Anna," she wept. "Anna, please come back. I'm… I'm sorry that… that we never got to build another snowman together. I'm sorry that we lost so much precious time. I'm sorry that… that I couldn't win, that I couldn't save you the way I wanted to. But please, it can't end like this. You have too much life left to live. Arendelle needs you. It needs a… a queen. And Kristoff needs you, and so many others need you. And I… I need to know you're safe and… and whole and..."

"What are you doing?"

It was difficult to say whether curiosity or derision weighed more heavily in the Snow Queen's voice. Either way, her words imposed themselves upon Elsa's world with all the tact and subtlety of a sledge hammer. They were so jarring and unexpected, it took nearly a minute before Elsa could compose herself sufficiently to even attempt a response. She drew away from Anna, though only enough so that she could see her face and lay a hand against her cheek, hoping to feel a change that her eyes could not see. And though she answered the Snow Queen, she refused to turn and look at the woman.

"I'm trying to bring Anna's memories back."

"Really?" The curiosity had gone while the scorn had shifted into an angry disappointment. "How do you think such mawkish weeping is going to accomplish that?"

"It worked on Kai."

"Who?"

Now Elsa did look back over her shoulder, if only because she didn't want to risk sullying Anna as she spat her reply. "Have you forgotten him already? The young boy you kidnapped a generation before you met my mother? You whisked him away from his home, stole all his memories, and brought him here to… to… to do whatever twisted things you do!"

Recognition dawned across the Snow Queen's face. "Oh, him! I never knew his name. Truthfully, I never bothered to ask. It hardly seemed important when he himself would not long remember it. But yes, I always wondered what became of him. I left him here unattended for a time. None of the others over the years ever wandered off on their own."

"You mean escaped," Elsa snapped.

The Snow Queen gave a dismissive shrug. "When I returned to find him gone, I did look for him. My home is large, but I can always tell whenever and wherever anyone is inside it. It did not take long to determine that he was not. I even searched outside, in case he had somehow found his way to one of the exits. I did not spend overly much time trying to track him down, though. He had not exactly been one of the more promising subjects I'd ever had."

Despite the quickly freezing dampness on her cheeks and all her other distractions, Elsa's attention was grabbed by the way that the Snow Queen called Kai one of her subjects. During their confrontation in the palace courtyard, she had similarly referred to Elsa as an experiment. Was what she'd done to Kai in any way related to what she had later done to an unborn princess? If so, what exactly was it that she'd been trying to accomplish? Elsa was just about ready to give voice to these questions when the Snow Queen asked one of her own.

"So what did happen to the boy, then? You say that this..." She waved superciliously in Elsa's general direction. "...this cloying sentimentality worked on him, that it restored his memories. But then, that would imply that there was someone else present to administer it."

"There was," Elsa replied. "A friend who loved him enough to follow your trail for months and miles, enduring countless hardships until she finally found this place. And when she did, when she saw Kai in the same state that Anna's in now, her love and her grief for him broke your spell and set him free." A warm glow of pride and defiance began to ignite within her. Gerda had found a way to defeat this witch's magic when she'd been but a child. There had to be a way for her to do the same now. There simply had to!

"Ahhh." It was the sound of sudden, enlightened understanding. "I see. Yes, I suppose that would explain it. Well, children's minds are far more malleable. That was why I chose them in the first place. They absorb everything around them, almost indiscriminately. They learn at such a remarkable rate because there is so much less clutter to interfere with new ideas. And when they are young, love given or love withheld can completely change their world.

"With age, however, change becomes far less easy. A wall that might be easily thrown down when it is little more than a line of pebbles can become insurmountable when it has been made into a barricade of mighty stone. It is much easier to change the course of a tiny rivulet than a broad stream. So it is with the mind. Ideas become beliefs become accepted facts that no amount of persuasion can change. Hearts that have been broken may heal, but the scars that they bear benumb them so that they never feel quite as intensely again.

"I needed only a fraction of the effort to clear that boy's mind compared to what it took to do the same for your sister. Naturally, the effort to bring it back will have grown as well. So no," she said, her mouth twisting in an unsympathetic smirk, "I am afraid that love alone will not be enough this time."

Elsa's eyes grew wide with alarm. She looked back at Anna, whose gaze had not shifted in the slightest even as the emotional drama had played out around her. Then she turned to Kristoff. He was holding himself ramrod straight so as not to tempt the ice blade still held at his throat, but his face reflected all the fear and uncertainty that she herself was feeling. Their eyes met, and it was clear that neither had any answers to offer the other. So despite herself, Elsa once again faced the Snow Queen, fighting to restrain the panic that had so quickly snuffed out whatever hope had been blossoming within her mere moments earlier.

"Then how am I supposed to restore Anna's memories?" she asked, her tone almost pleading, her hands feebly clenching and unclenching at her sides.

"The same way they were taken. With magic."

"I… I can't do that," Elsa stammered. "I… I don't know how!"

"Well then," replied the Snow Queen carelessly, "more's the pity for your sister."

The panic was almost a physical thing inside Elsa now. It seemed to fill her entire chest, compressing her organs so that her lungs could not draw air, her heart struggled to beat, and her stomach shrunk into a tiny and painful knot. She swung back toward Anna as the entire world seemed to collapse around them. The terror infiltrated her mind as well, pushing out all other thoughts until the only one that remained was of her abject and total failure. Her hands shook as she raised them again to brush back a stray lock of frost-whitened hair that had fallen across Anna's right eye.

 _I'm sorry, Anna,_ she thought, for she would surely crumble if she were to hear the words spoken aloud. _I'm sorry. I've failed you again! I tried. I tried so hard, and yet… and yet… Whenever you need me, I…_ Anna's face began to blur as tears welled up anew.

 _Elsa… I think you can do this..._

Her own voice spoke inside her head, yet she knew the words were not hers. There was a confidence there, or at least a hopefulness, that could not have come from her current mental state. She blinked, and her vision cleared slightly.

 _I think_ we _can do this!_ the voice that both was and wasn't her own added.

 _Fare?_

There was a second's hesitation before the voice spoke to her again. _Do you trust me?_

The next pause was even longer. Elsa's mind raced as it tried to understand, fought to push back the cloud of despair that had settled upon it, and struggled to answer a question that had plagued it ever since she'd been a young girl. Finally, after drawing a long and shaky breath, she gave an almost imperceptible nod.

 _Yes_ , she replied.

 _Then this is what I need you to do…_

Gently, Elsa pressed one hand to either side of her sister's face. In an almost detached sort of way, she noticed that they had both stopped shaking. She leaned forward until her forehead met Anna's. She took one last look into the glassy, unseeing eyes. Then, she closed her own…

• • •

She was standing in the middle of a corridor so immense, both the ceiling and the far end were lost in shadows. Only the side walls could be dimly made out, though their obscurity was due less to distance than an almost palpable murk that hung in the air. Wherever she might be, darkness here seemed to possess both substance and weight. It pressed down on her like a smothering blanket, filling her lungs with every breath, seeping into her bloodstream like a poison that left her feeling horribly, wretchedly, and absolutely alone.

"You're not. But your sister is."

Elsa spun around and almost smiled with relief. "Fare!" she gasped.

Her dark double did smile, and it briefly occurred to Elsa that the familiar quirk of her lips would not have looked out of place on the Snow Queen's face. Here, however, it was less haughty and a little more self-effacing. In truth, it probably would have seemed perfectly at home on her own face as well. After all, that's exactly where it was, after a fashion.

"Where are we?" Elsa asked, looking around and attempting to pierce the thick darkness.

"Inside Anna's mind."

"Yes, I gathered that. But this place seems, I don't know, familiar somehow. How can that be?"

Fare shrugged. "Maybe if we shed a bit more light on the matter?"

She lifted an arm, and only then did Elsa notice that its hand gripped the handle of a brilliant lantern. The darkness retreated before its light like fog in a high wind, roiling and curling back upon itself in its haste to flee. A circle had soon been cleared around them, extending from where they stood and climbing high up either side wall. Then for the first time, Elsa understood why she'd felt as though she had recognized the broad passage. "Oh," she breathed, and her voice cracked a little.

The walls were lined as high as they could see with picture frames of every shape and size. There were short but broad ones, tall and narrow ones. There were tiny miniatures and vast panoramas. Some were rectangular, others oval. The frames ranged from simple, bare wood to rich and ornately-carved masterpieces covered in gold leaf. The sheer variety was astounding!

And yet the canvases within every single one were entirely blank.

"It's just like the palace gallery," Elsa said in a whisper, "except… Oh, Anna." She knew that her sister had often sought refuge amid the gallery's paintings during their childhood separation whenever she had felt particularly lonely. That she would now lose herself inside this magnified facsimile, when nearly everything and everyone she had ever known had been taken from her, tore at Elsa's heart as surely as her magic had once pierced Anna's. She turned her head and looked up and down the length of the hall, or at least as far as she could given the darkness that still lurked just beyond the reach of Fare's lantern. As far as she could tell, it might well stretch out to eternity in both directions.

She turned back to Fare. "You said that I – that we could do this. How do you know? How can you be sure?"

Fare frowned slightly. "I'm not sure. I said that I _thought_ we could do this, together. After all, I've spent my entire life – our life – exploring your mind and your memories. I learned how to find things that you yourself had forgotten, or nearly so. Remember?

"I knew that the palace was scheduled to receive an ice delivery that day when you had grown so frustrated with trying to shape snow. Even though it was such an inconsequential detail that you had barely paid any attention to it, it let me point you and your exploration of your magic in an entirely new direction. Then later, I reminded you of how your father used to take you down to the water's edge in the middle of winter, and how you used to skip stones across the frozen fjord. I helped you to recall the passage you had read in that Arendelle history book, the one that led Anna to finding King Bolli's tunnel and allowed her sneak out of the castle for a few precious hours of freedom. And not that long ago, I helped you to see how your powers had once saved Anna's life, even though you kept trying to convince yourself that they had only ever hurt her!"

The black-haired woman swept her gaze over the empty paintings. "It's different here, of course. I suspect no two minds are ever quite the same. Yours is… well, more like a library, maybe? It's difficult to describe. But there must be similarities, too. So maybe, just maybe, the two of us together can find a way."

It was the closest thing to hope that Elsa had been given, and so she seized it and held it fiercely. "Alright," she said, her voice regaining some of its strength now that they appeared to have even the tiniest glimmer of a plan. "What do we do first?"

Fare thought for a moment. "What's your earliest memory of Anna?"

At last, Elsa smiled. "Oh, that's easy. It was when..."

"No," Fare shook her head. "Don't tell me." She pointed a finger toward a blank canvas on the nearby wall. "Give it back to Anna."

Elsa stared at the bare stretch of white, then looked back at Fare. "How?" she asked. "I don't even have any..."

Fare lowered her eyes, and Elsa followed them with her own. When she saw what her doppelganger had seen, she very nearly dropped it. Somehow, clasped between the fingers of her left hand, a flat wooden box had appeared. Elsa recognized it immediately and, after recovering from the shock, clutched it to her chest in wide-eyed disbelief. Fare gazed back at her. Then, with a solemn nod, she gestured once again toward the empty frame.

Elsa turned and walked slowly over to the wall, where she stared at the spot that had once held a precious memory. With a wave of her hand, she conjured a spindly table of ice directly beside her and laid the box atop it. Undoing its latch, she flipped the box open. Then she reached in, selected one of the many pencils that nestled within it, placed its tip upon the canvas, and began to draw.

It shouldn't have worked as well as it did. A canvas is meant to take paint, not lead. The drawing should have been coarse and rough, the faint outline of a sketch that would only be complete once it had been properly filled in with oils and pigments. Yet the surface seemed hungry for every little detail. The pencil seemed to read Elsa's thoughts – which, considering where she was and what she was attempting to do, probably made perfect sense. It delivered a fine line as she sketched out the first, tentative shapes. But as she grew in confidence, as the image from her past began to solidify before her, the traces darkened. The lead flowed out almost as thick and dark as ink. Bright canvas and her dark drawing became light and shadow, creating form out of nothingness in almost the same way that she had made the table materialize beside her.

She dropped the pencil back into its allotted place in the art set, exactly like those Anna had slipped under her door or sent in with their mother so very many years ago. Deftly, she grabbed a pastel stick and began to add color. Pastels had never been her preferred medium – they were messy and imprecise, so she had nearly always leaned toward the simple elegance of pencils sketches – but in this place and time, she somehow knew that every tint would go exactly where she intended it to be.

Her hands moved as quickly across the surface as they had when she'd been conjuring ice during her battle with the Snow Queen, yet not a single stroke seemed to go astray. Her brow furrowed in concentration as she filled in every miniscule detail she could remember, only it wasn't exactly her memory. At least, she wasn't trying to capture a single moment exactly the way she remembered having seen it. Instead, she had pieced together everything she remembered about the scene in order to reconstruct it from a different angle. It showed more than she had ever been able to see at once. For that matter, it showed her in the scene as well, something she could not possibly have seen herself.

When at last she finished and stepped back, she felt Fare move forward to stand beside her. Together, they admired her work.

In the foreground, a crib. In the crib, a newborn baby with a shock of reddish hair. Leaning over the crib, a young girl whose pale blond hair had been drawn back into a short ponytail. Above them both, an oversized, blue-white snowflake sparkled, almost seeming to revolve in midair. And in the background, silhouetted by the light that shown through a doorway in the far wall, two much taller figures stood, pressed close against one another as they silently watched the two girls meeting for the very first time.

Fare's right hand moved a little, and it slipped inside Elsa's left, their fingers intertwining. Fare gave a brief squeeze. "Well done," she said quietly.

But before Elsa could respond, something happened that took her breath away. The snowflake in the drawing, which she had diligently worked to capture in mid-revolution, suddenly began to revolve for real. One finger on the blond girl's hand twirled slightly in time with the motion. The two distant adults pulled apart, then leaned back in to rest comfortably against one another. And the babe's arms reached upward, seeking to touch the fascinating magical object suspended above her.

From somewhere – Elsa could not possibly say where – the musical sound of a newborn's laughter rang out, faint but clear. There came a dazzling flash of light, bright enough to temporarily blind her. She blinked furiously, trying to clear eyes that she knew only really existed in her mind – or in Anna's, to be precise. When the afterimages faded enough that she could see clearly again, she gasped, for the frame that she had so lovingly filled in was no longer alone.

All around it, other scenes had appeared. Most were fuzzy and indistinct, but that did not bother her in the slightest. They were enough. She recognized familiar faces, albeit somewhat distorted for having been seen from a baby's perspective. Their father bending over and looking down, a silly grin upon his face that would have quickly put the lie to the dignity of his position as king. Their mother, wearing a gentle and caring smile as she lifted baby Anna and brought her to her breast to feed. Gerda, laughing with giddy abandon as she spun round and around in circles, Anna held out in front of her so as to best enjoy the dizzying ride.

Then Elsa saw her own face, peering down with rapt wonder at her little baby sister. The look she wore, though far from unhappy, also was not as obviously joyful as what the grownups had shown. Instead, it was filled with awe at the little miracle she was being allowed to cradle in her lap, along with a tinge of fear that something bad might happen while such precious cargo was in her care.

Yet the newly resurrected memories failed to extend more than three of four frames in any given direction from the one that she herself had recreated. As this fact sank in, her initial elation dwindled. "It wasn't enough," she said, her voice heavy with disappointment.

"It was only a start," Fare corrected her. Her eyes swung in an arc that took in the boundary beyond which all frames remained blank. Then she pointed up and to the left. "There. That one."

"What one?" Elsa asked, following Fare's pointing finger.

A few moments and the construction of a modest ice platform later, the two examined a canvas that, from floor level, had looked as empty to Elsa as all the rest. Close up, however, she realized that was not the case. The faint hint of an image could be seen, as though someone had sketched out the roughest possible outline of what ought to belong there. Elsa squinted at it, trying to make out enough detail to be able to start filling in the gaps. Yet try as she might, she could not place the scene.

"Maybe this will help," offered Fare. Wrapping one arm around Elsa's shoulders, she leaned in until their heads touched, temple to temple. Then, Elsa saw it. Anna, somehow having escaped her crib, crawling along the floor of the upstairs hallway. Anna, reaching the end of the hallway and the top of the massive spiral staircase that descended all the way to the ground floor. Anna, much too young to have any idea what she was doing, teetering over the edge of the uppermost step.

Again, Elsa's pencil flashed across the canvas. And again, shapes and shadows formed from nothingness. She added detail, texture, color. When her frenzied activity finished, the frame now showed the baby Anna, squirming but safe in her big sister's arms as they both looked down from the top of what could have been an incredibly dangerous drop.

Little Anna's arms and legs began to wave, not quite understanding why they weren't still in contact with the floor. Elsa's shoulders rose and fell as she dragged in one breath after another, having sprinted clear from the other end of the hallway just in time to snatch up her sister. There followed another brilliant flash of light, and when it cleared, even more frames had filled with memories.

The same pattern repeated over and over again: Fare finding the next crucial connecting point, Elsa filling it in. Sometimes, she recognized the scene immediately. Other times, Fare again stepped in to jog her memory. Elsa recreated ten memories, then a hundred, and each one rekindled perhaps a dozen more. In this fashion, they progressed slowly but steadily along the wall, until…

The pencil dropped from Elsa's fingers. Strangely, it made almost no sound as it struck the floor.

"No," she moaned, as she stared at the cross-corridor that branched off both left and right. Like the one they were already in, it seemed to extend forever in both directions, and the walls were all filled with empty pictures.

There was a truism that Elsa had been taught long ago: Nature never creates two of anything. Something may be unique in which case there is, by definition, only one. Otherwise there are, inevitably, many. Which meant that, since they had now encountered two barren galleries, it was a near certainty that there were countless more waiting to be found and filled. What had already seemed like a nigh endless task had just been multiplied by an entirely new magnitude of infinities.

"I can't do this, Fare," she said weakly, and she found herself leaning on the other woman for support. "I can't rebuild an entire life one memory at a time. It would… it would take a lifetime just to relive it all. Anna can't wait that long! Isn't there some other way?"

Fare pursed her lips, considering. "Maybe," she said, "but I don't know that it would be any faster."

"What is it?"

"We could find Anna."

Elsa stood up straight and looked at Fare in confusion. "Find Anna? I thought we were _inside_ of Anna? Or inside her mind, at least."

"We are," Fare replied awkwardly. "You're here, and I'm here. And we're talking to each other. And when I visited you in your dreams, we were both inside your head, but we were still… us." She waved her hands in exasperation at the inability of mere words to properly express the concepts she was trying to convey.

"When you were dreaming, it was never difficult for me to find you, but that wasn't because I was particularly clever at knowing where to look. It was because you… filled up you! You were everywhere. I couldn't _not_ find you. That's how things ought to be. But Anna – the part of her that the Snow Queen left intact – is so small now that she's lost in here. It's like this, all of this, is the weave of the fabric that ought to make up her mind. She should be wearing this, but instead it's come unraveled, and now she's trapped within all the loose threads. Does that make any sense?"

"Sort of," Elsa conceded.

"Except in this case, the garment is the wearer is the garment. By repairing one, we restore the other. Since the threads are all around us, they're easy to find and relatively straightforward to fix, but every single one takes time. The other choice is to find that core bit of Anna that's still in here somewhere. If we can get to her, if we can talk to her directly, then we might be able to repair everything all at once. But, since we have no way of knowing where in here she might be, we would have to search it all, and that would hardly be much faster than what we've already been doing."

Fare hung her head as her shoulders slumped in weary defeat. "I'm sorry, Elsa. I wish there was some other way, but if there is, I don't know it. This is all I can offer. I'm sorry that it isn't enough."

A finger hooked beneath Fare's chin and slowly tilted it upwards. She did not resist, but she kept her eyes lowered in reflection of her guilt and shame. So it was that Elsa still had to bend down to catch her eye, at least until Fare saw the last thing that she could possibly have expected.

Elsa was smiling.

"What?" Fare asked, finally looking straight on at Elsa again. "What is it?"

"My powers," she said, and she pointed at the stand she had constructed to hold her art supplies. "They still seem to work in here, right?" Fare nodded, agreeing to the obvious. "Well then..."

Elsa's hands began to move. They twirled around in front of her, the familiar blueish glow sparking to life between them. In the center of the swirl of energy, a small snowball began to form. It did not stay small for long.

As Elsa continued to pour power into it, she strode out to the exact center of the intersection. Soon, the ball was too large to be contained between her cupped hands. She spread her arms farther and farther apart. Still, the ball kept growing. She lifted her hands up over her head, and the snowball followed suit. She brought her arms slowly down until they were nearly parallel with the floor, the magic continuously flowing out of her the entire time. The snowball that rose above her now stretched from one side of the intersection to the other, bulging outward into each of the four separate branching galleries.

"Go," she whispered, her head tipped back to stare straight up at her creation. "Go and find Anna."

She gave one sharp flick of her fingers and, with a tremendous _phut_ , the enormous sphere split into four equal parts, each streaking off along one of the four possible directions. As they receded into the distance, the sounds of further loud _phuts_ drifted back to them. Each part was dividing itself again and again, exploring every possible passage as it was encountered.

"Now," Elsa said, sounding resigned but hopeful, "we wait."

They waited for a very long time.

• • •

The two women sat back-to-back on the floor in the middle of the intersection, positioned so they could each see down two of the four dark passages. Elsa had conjured a lamppost of ice that curved up over their heads, and from this hung Fare's lantern. Its light was enough to keep the swirling blackness from encroaching into the crossroads, but that was the limit of its power.

Elsa's eyes continuously swept back and forth, searching for any sign of glistening white returning to her out of the darkness. She had lost all track of time. She wasn't even sure what time meant here. In the past, she had experienced dreams that had seemed to cover days, only to realize upon waking that they could not possibly have lasted more than an hour. She did not know if Anna's current state was in any way like a dream, and though she could have asked Fare, she'd chosen not to. She had decided that it didn't really matter. Their only choice now was to wait, and so wait she would, for however long it might take.

"Elsa," came Fare's whispered voice from behind her.

"Hmm?" she asked distractedly, not wanting to have her attention drawn away from her ceaseless survey.

"Elsa!" Fare's voice was louder this time, and it was accompanied by a sharp jab of her elbow into Elsa's ribs. Looking around, Elsa saw Fare's head tilted back, moving slowly as she traced the course of a nearly unseen object that was moving lethargically above them. Its path was somewhat meandering. Yet it was, without a doubt, heading toward Elsa.

She spun around, getting to her knees as she did so, and held out her cupped hands to cradle the single, tiny snowflake as it drifted weakly downwards. It looked sad and forlorn, as though nearly all of its energy had been spent and it was now limping home, barely able to continue but determined to fulfill its mission nonetheless. Afraid that, in such a state, it might melt if it so much as touched even her cold skin, Elsa quickly created a cushion of magic between her palms. It was onto this that the snowflake settled, then lay perfectly still.

"One." Elsa barely breathed for fear that the warm air might snuff out the tiny ice crystal. "Out of the billions I sent out, only one returned." She looked up from her hands to meet Fare's eyes. How long would it have taken them to explore that far themselves? How many twists and turns? How many chances to get hopelessly turned about and lost? How many memories would she have had to replace to fill such an unbelievable vastness?

And yet, this one solitary snowflake was there, right there between them. It had gone out, and it had come back. Which could mean only one thing.

"We can find Anna!"

Elsa's heart overflowed with joy, and the blue light between her fingers glowed suddenly bright. So, too, did that brave little snowflake. Almost like a firework, it shot straight up into the air, its restored life and vitality a reflection of everything its creator was suddenly feeling. It spun dizzyingly, and the fact that they could even tell its spin at all served as a herald of another change in the tiny crystal's fortunes. Even as they watched, it grew, the details of its many intricate facets and delicate hexagonal structure becoming quite clear. In a matter of moments, its frantic spinning had slowed until, at last, it revolved sedately above their heads.

It was a perfect match for the one that had hovered over Anna's crib.

Elsa climbed to her feet, Fare only a fraction of a second behind her. She gazed up at the flawless ice crystal, her face glowing almost as brightly as had her magic. She glanced back down at Fare, who once again nodded. Then, with a broad and excited grin, Elsa addressed the most loyal snowflake she had ever created.

"Show us the way to my sister!"


	33. Memories and Monsters

Like a prism, the crystalline ice caught and refracted the light from Fare's lantern. As they hurried through the labyrinthine passages of Anna's mind, the denuded canvases that had been her memories briefly sparkled with flashes of rainbow color whenever the oversized snowflake spun past.

Elsa and Fare followed their guide as quickly as they could, yet they could not seem to move fast enough for its liking. Ever since Elsa's swell of excitement had rejuvenated it, the snowflake had taken on the characteristics of a rather over-excited puppy. It would race off ahead of them, causing the surrounding darkness to scuttle away from the light that flashed off its facets. This seemed to amuse it, and it would dart from one side of the gallery to the other just to revel in the effect. Then it would come bounding back to them, swooping once around their heads before suddenly shooting off again.

It never wandered too far and always made sure to stay within sight, except occasionally when they would approach an intersection and it simply could not control its impatience. Then it would duck around the corner before briefly popping back out, only to disappear again. This little game of peekaboo was apparently its way of wordlessly saying, "Hey, hurry up, will you? What are you waiting for?"

Elsa had no trouble understanding the sentiment, for she was every bit as eager to find Anna. She found it incredibly vexing that, even though this was all taking place inside her sister's head, she was still limited by the speed at which her legs could carry her.

"Why can't we go faster?" she asked Fare as they rounded yet another corner. She'd lost count of how many turns they'd already taken. "It isn't like my body is actually in here running. And whenever you visited me in my dreams, you were able to take me anywhere instantly."

"Not exactly," Fare corrected her. "We never actually went anywhere then. I was just able to pull images from your memories and use them to change the dream around us. But this isn't a dream. There's not enough of Anna left _to_ dream. This is..." She faltered, once again struggling to find words that could adequately explain something as inexplicable as the workings of the human mind. Eventually, she shook her head.

"I'm not entirely sure what this is, to be honest. I've only ever been inside your mind before. In fact, this might be as much you as Anna. This could simply be the way that you perceive her current state, just like your body is the way you perceive yourself within it. Either way, it's hardly surprising that we have so far to go. Anna is completely lost within herself right now. It was never going to be easy to find her and bring her back."

"But if that's the case, then… No. Never mind." Elsa had been about to ask how she could still control ice and snow here if this was all just some elaborate metaphor she had constructed to represent her sister's mind. "It doesn't really matter, as long as we're able to find..."

The hexagonal crystal was zooming around in circles in the middle of the next intersection. As they themselves reached it, it shot off to the right. They followed, their momentum carrying them through a wide arc into another stretch of gallery. Elsa immediately recognized that this one was different from all others they had traversed in two very important ways. First, one wall was not completely festooned with empty paintings, for partway along its length stood a half-opened door. And second, huddled in that doorway was a familiar figure.

"Anna!"

Her sister looked up, startled by the sound of another voice intruding into what had previously been abject silence. Her eyes rapidly darted between the whirling snowflake and the two woman who shared a single face. Then they grew round and wide with fear and, before Elsa could cross the distance to reach her, Anna had hurriedly scrambled across the threshold. The door closed soundlessly behind her.

"Anna!" Elsa shouted again as she reached the door and fought futilely to turn the handle. It wouldn't budge; it had been locked from inside. "Anna, it's me! It's Elsa!" She pounded on the door, desperate for it to open. It was too much to be this close to her sister yet still be unable to reach her, touch her, comfort her. "I'm your sister! Please, you have to remember! Just… just let me in!"

 _I'm right out here for you, just let me in._

The pounding of her fists subsided as Elsa slumped heavily against the door, her forehead pressed dejectedly against its white wood. "We only have each other," she murmured almost to herself. "It's just you and me." She shuddered at the bitter memory, then winced as she realized that Anna didn't even have that anymore. Turning around so that her back was to the door, she slid weakly to the floor. Her head hung low for a moment before she forced herself to look up. When she did, she found her own eyes gazing compassionately down at her.

"What am I supposed to do?" she asked, her voice trembling. Despite having lived with magic her entire life, none of her experience had prepared her for this. She felt completely out of her element, for she could see no way that either snow nor ice would help her now. For better or for worse, all her hopes rested upon her dark-haired doppelganger who would not even have existed but for the labors of the same woman who had stolen her sister's memories.

It was a testament to how much their relationship had changed in the past ten years that she did not feel even the slightest qualm about placing such faith in Fare.

Fare stooped down so that her eyes were nearly on a level with Elsa's. "Talk to her," she said gently. "This isn't like before in the throne room. Your words to her then could never have found their way through this maze. They never reached her. But here and now, you are as close to Anna as you could possibly be. She's just on the other side of that door. Reach out to her. Make her understand. Make her remember. Help her find her way back to the world.

"Do for her what she once did for you."

Slowly, Elsa nodded. Then she twisted partway around so that her left shoulder leaned against the door. Bringing her right hand up, she laid it lightly upon the smooth wood. "Anna?" she called out in quiet appeal. "Anna, you're not alone. Not any more. I'm here for you. So are Kristoff and Olaf and Sven. Your whole family is here, just waiting for you to come out again.

"You might not remember any of us right now, but those memories are still there somewhere. You can get them back. I know you can. And I'll do everything in my power to help you, if you'll let me. I just need you to believe in me like you always have."

She fell silent, searching frantically for the perfect words that would get through to Anna despite the lifetime's worth of distance that the Snow Queen had placed between them. When they refused to come, however, she had no choice but to instead give voice to those that made themselves available to her.

"I know that I wasn't always a good sister to you, no matter how much I tried to be. All I wanted was to protect you and keep you safe, though it doesn't seem like I was able to do even that properly. Of course, it was never easy. You always made sure of that. There was rarely an idea that came into your head that you wouldn't try out if it seemed like it might lead to fun.

"You would climb every tree in the royal garden, right up to the very top, no matter how many times Nanny scolded you for 'behavior unbecoming a princess.' The number of snags and tears that had to be mended in your clothes after they got caught on branches… Well, I think you single-handedly kept the Arendelle seamstresses gainfully employed for several years there when you were growing up. I didn't see it, but Mother told me about this one time when you chased a cat up the old oak tree and failed to pay enough attention to what you were doing. I guess you didn't notice when the hem of your dress got caught on a sharp bit of bark. You just kept right on climbing, following that silly cat. Apparently your skirt had had enough, though, because it decided to stay behind."

A smile crept onto Elsa's face as she pictured the scene. She fervently wished she had been there to see it in person, but she hadn't. She'd been locked in her room, hiding her powers and herself from the world. Instead, it had been another of Anna's friends, Marie, who had…

"Marie was there with you," she blurted out hopefully. "Do you remember Marie? She was your best friend for a while when you were young, until she and her family had to go back to France. But you still send each other letters all the time. For a year or so there, the two of you were practically inseparable. You did everything together. You took her through every corner of the castle. You would both climb to the top of the main guard tower to watch the ships sailing across the fjord. Father taught the two of you sword fighting. You even convinced him to buy a violin for Marie so she could learn the instrument.

"I'll never forget the first time she played for you," Elsa went on rather wistfully. "She played for both of us – you saw to that. And that first melody was so beautiful! I'd already been trapped inside my room for several years by then, but when I heard Marie play, it was like I was transported outside the castle, beyond the town, up and away into some far spring meadow. I'd never realized that music could do that before then. I listened to it over and over again on the music box Mother and Father gave me for my eleventh birthday, but it was never quite the same as when Marie played it on her violin. Those tiny metal chimes just couldn't do it justice. Oh, but when she came back to visit and played it again in time with the music box, it was just so incredible. Marie has such an amazing talent, and she's never given up on her dream of pursuing a life of music, even after… after..."

Elsa broke off then, for thoughts of that second performance brought with them memories of the tragic accident that had befallen Marie – the one that had forced her family to leave Arendelle in the first place. Poor Anna had already looked so shaky before she'd disappeared behind the door. Perhaps she didn't need to be reminded of everything just yet. She might not be ready to hear it all. It could so easily frighten her even further away.

"Tell her," Fare said reassuringly. "That's part of her life, too. It all is, both the good and the bad. You can't pick and choose for her. Remember what the Snow Queen said about how she'd made Anna better by making her forget all the terrible things in her life. That's not what you want, is it? If she's going to get her memories back, then she'll get them all back. If you want Anna to be Anna again, then you can't spare her the pain. It's a huge part of what makes her so strong, just as your suffering has done for you."

There would have been a time not so very long ago when Elsa would have protested that she wasn't strong at all. A strong person wouldn't have hidden away from the world for thirteen years. A strong person wouldn't have fled to the mountains when embarrassment and terror overwhelmed her. A strong person would have been able to control her powers, sparing her family and her kingdom so many problems.

Yet a weak person wouldn't have been able to stand up to the Snow Queen, nearly holding her own on two separate occasions. A weak person wouldn't have traveled hundreds of miles, endured hardships and captivity, dealt with kings and robbers and suspicious trolls, all in the hope of saving her sister. A weak person would have despaired of ever finding Anna here amid the endless galleries of vanished memories.

So maybe she wasn't strong. But she wasn't weak, either. What did that make her, then?

 _Me,_ she thought. _It makes me, me. Elsa. Queen of Arendelle. Daughter of Agdar and Idun. Sister to Anna. It makes me human. And it's what Anna needs to get back if she's ever going to be human again, too._

Elsa lowered her eyes for a moment. When she continued, her voice was more subdued than it had been before. "We made a promise to each other last summer, Anna. We swore that there wouldn't be any more secrets between us, and I've tried my best to honor that promise. But there are one or two things that I don't think I've ever told you. I didn't mean for them to be secrets, really. I was just… I was so embarrassed by them that I did my best to forget about them myself." She took a deep breath, then let it out in a long sigh.

"The very first time I saw you playing with Marie outside my window, I was jealous. Seeing you laughing and having fun with someone else like that, the way we had always done when we were younger… It hurt. I hated that we'd lost that because of my magic, that I couldn't be the one out there with you. I know it was a stupid thing to feel, and a part of me was happy for you at the same time because it was so wonderful to see you enjoying yourself again. But it was like seeing everything that I had lost, everything that I had given up, right there in front of my eyes, and… Well, I'm not proud of it, but I thought you deserved to know.

"In the end, though, I was just so glad that you were still able to make new friends despite what I'd put you through. Watching you through my window helped to make things a little more bearable for me. Every time I saw you safe and happy, it meant that my loneliness was at least serving its intended purpose. Maybe I couldn't be with you, but at least I was protecting you from getting hurt again. That's what I told myself anyway. And then… then..."

Her next words came out in a rush, spilling out so fast they almost blurred together. "There was an accident. A dangerously overloaded cart lost its cargo while going around a turn, and Marie ended up pinned beneath the crates. They were heavy – much too heavy. Her legs were broken in so many places. She and her family had to leave Arendelle. They traveled to Paris to see the best surgeon in France in hopes that he could help repair her legs. But… but they were too badly damaged. She can't walk now. She has to use a wheelchair just to get around.

"Oh, Anna. You were so devastated when she left. You wouldn't talk to anyone. I know you don't remember, but that was so completely unlike you. Mother was worried sick. But for some reason, you eventually came and sat outside my door and… Well, you still didn't talk, at least not at first. So I talked to you, just like I'm doing now. And just like now, I really had no idea what I ought to say. I tried to help, to let you know that I understood and that I would be there for you. But you got so angry with me and you shouted and then ran off, and I thought for certain that I'd only made matters worse."

Elsa lifted her head and looked up at the empty frames around her. "From what Mother told me later, I think that was when you started hiding in the Royal Gallery. You weren't ready to talk with anyone about what you were feeling, so you started talking to the pictures instead. For a while, I think they replaced all the friends you had ever lost. Is that why you're back here again now? When the Snow Queen took your memories, did you come here hoping you might find something to take their place?"

She paused to listen, hoping against hope that some answer would come back to her. None did. Elsa closed her eyes and fought to keep her composure. She had to be brave for Anna. She had to offer a solid foundation upon which her sister could rebuild herself. And though Fare had encouraged her not to shy away from the more painful memories, she felt that she had to let Anna know that they weren't all bad either. So with that in mind, she soldiered on.

"Here's the thing, though. It got better. It took some time, but it did. Marie refused to let her injuries stop her. She could still play music, and she was determined to become the best violinist she could be. Her parents found a school in Paris that was willing to accommodate her special needs, and she continued taking music lessons on the side as well. Once she graduated, she applied to and was accepted by the Paris Conservatory. She's in her last year now, and she's done amazingly well. She came back to Arendelle last summer for the coronation, and she promised that she'll return again once she finishes her studies. I know that's something you've really been looking forward to. We both have.

"You got better, too, and you made new friends. Remember Adelen, the horse that Father got for you? Then there was Josef who worked in the stables. Well, I suppose he still does, doesn't he? He and Father both taught you how to ride. And then there were those few times when you managed to sneak out of the castle and got to explore the town, at least for a little a while. You found the hidden entrance to an old tunnel that King Bolli once used to escape a siege, and you followed it all the way out to where it opened onto the foothills above the capital.

"You were only able to stay out for a few hours each time, but even on that very first trip, you made friends: two young girls – sisters, just like us. You only spent a few minutes with them, but you never needed any more than that to make a friend! Why, years later, you invited them both to the coronation ball! I can only imagine what their reactions must have been when they received those letters. I'm sure they never dreamed that the girl they'd met in the marketplace that one summer's day had actually been a princess.

"Hille – that's the older one – started working in the palace kitchens with Gerda after we opened the gates and grew the staff again. Her sister Nina is forever in and out of the castle, and she never passes up the chance to tell anyone who will listen the story of how she first met Princess Anna. She was so young at the time, though, I think she mostly just remembers whatever Hille has told her about it..."

And so Elsa went on, not having any particular plan in mind or any clear idea where she was going with it all. She simply kept talking, her ramblings barely more than her stream of consciousness put into words. She bounced all around Anna's life, from the games they had played together during their earliest childhood to their romp in the snow with the children and Polla. She recounted Midsummer's Eves, birthdays, and coronations. She spoke of Gerda and of Kai, of Karina and Fritz, of Saul and Peder and all the other people who had ever worked in the castle, all of whom Anna had come to know so very well during the years when she had not been allowed to leave its walls. She talked about their parents, of the love they'd had for their daughters, the mistakes they'd made because of that, everything they had done to try to make things right, and the horrible emptiness that had been left behind with their passing. One thing simply led to another in that random and inexplicable way that conversations sometimes tended to unfold.

Except that it was not a conversation. Some part of her wondered if this was what it had been like for Anna when she had sat outside the door to her sister's bedroom each day, trying to come up with things to say that hadn't already been said before. It was far harder than Elsa had ever imagined. Talking with someone was one thing. Talking to nothing and no one, without the slightest response in return, was quite another. She didn't even have any way to know for sure whether Anna was actually listening to her endless prattle. All she could do was keep talking and hope that some of what she was saying mattered... or that at least the sound of her voice might.

She talked for what seemed like a very long time.

Then without warning, she suddenly found herself at a complete loss. She had absolutely no idea what she ought to say next. Staring dumbly at the door, she tried to will more words into being, but they would not come. She tried to remember what she had just been talking about a moment earlier, but whatever it had been, she had come to it through such a circuitous path that it now seemed she would not be able to find her way back to it. She attempted to recall everything that she'd talked about so that she might find something else worth mentioning that she hadn't already covered, but her scattershot approach made locating such gaps extremely difficult. The longer the silence dragged on, the more tense she became, and the tension in turn only made it that much harder to think clearly.

What was she supposed to do now? What more was there to be said? She had balked at the thought of having to recreate a lifetime's worth of memories by drawing each and every one. How many words would be required to do the same? All the talking she'd already done had apparently accomplished nothing. The door remained shut. Anna remained silent. And her own lifelong string of failures when it came to helping her sister remained intact.

Even if she could think of something more to say, how could an endless series of disconnected anecdotes make any meaningful difference? Her sister deserved so much better than the poor offerings she had been able to give her so far. She, Elsa, had always been the quiet one, and though she had always loved to read and had even played at making verse with their mother so very long ago, she'd never truly developed the knack for telling tales. After all, hidden away in her room for half of her life, who would she have told them to?

"It ought to be you," she said at last, and her voice took on a note of bitter self-reproach. "I'm no good at this. You would have done a much better job. After all, hardly a month went by without you sending a letter off to Marie telling her about… I don't even know. About everything that had happened since the letter before, I suppose. And you were always outside my door talking to me. Nearly every day, you would tell me about all the things you had done and the gossip you had heard and whatever matters of state Father and Mother had talked about over the dinner table. All I ever did was listen.

"And when you ran out of things to tell me, you would read me stories. Oh, you had Mother sending inquiries all across Europe for volumes of short stores and folklore and fairy tales. I don't know how many books we ended up with, and we still went through them all at least twice! You usually read them after dinner, so that Father took to calling them our bedtime stories. They were almost always the highlight of my entire day. But there was one story..."

She almost didn't continue. As the tale in question replayed itself in her mind, Elsa felt a sharp pain stab at her heart. Until that moment, she had not realized exactly how recent events had conspired to lend that story an even greater poignancy than it had originally possessed – which, at least in her mind, had already been considerable. What was worse, the parallels that had suddenly become obvious to her now made the tale's ending especially ominous. Irrational though such thoughts might have been, she found herself afraid to retell any part of it for fear of drawing the universe's attention to that particular outcome. She did not wish to inspire Fate to make the similarities between art and life complete.

"That story meant a lot to you, didn't it?"

Elsa didn't look at Fare, but she nodded in response. "Of course," she admitted. "It was my favorite of them all."

"I think it was Anna's, too," Fare said in sympathetic but encouraging tones. "She put a lot of herself into it."

"I know. I don't think anyone has ever given me a more amazing gift."

"Then why wouldn't you want to give it back to her now?"

At that, Elsa did turn to meet Fare's gaze, her expression wavering between embarrassment and apprehension. She opened her mouth to try and explain her reticence, but she could find no way to put her reasons into words that didn't sound laughable even to herself. She realized that she was being silly and superstitious, for the tale could not possibly have been prophetic, any more than her nightmare had been. She had never given credence to anything as outlandish as prophecies before. Why should she start now?

 _Maybe because I've discovered exactly how magic has shaped my entire life since before I was even born,_ she answered herself. _It might not be augury, but there's no denying that it has all led me here, to this place, with an inevitability that anyone could have predicted if only they'd been able to see all the signs. Besides, so many other things have come to pass that I never would have dreamed could even be possible. What's one more on top of the rest?_

Still, she said none of this. It was entirely likely that Fare knew exactly what she was thinking anyway, making her home as she did inside Elsa's mind. All the same, she chose to enjoy the illusion that these thoughts were wholly her own. Her response to Fare was, therefore, significantly less complicated. She simply nodded, then turned back to the door. Drawing a deep breath, she held it for a long moment before slowly letting it out again.

"It was a present," she said. "You wrote it yourself, and you read it to me on Midsummer's Eve. It was a tale of two sisters, one of whom was stolen away from her home by a hideous monster while the other chased after. She pursued them on foot, first for days, then weeks, and finally months. At last, worn and weary and at the end of all hope, she collapsed just within the mouth of a cave. Only when she awoke the next morning did she realize that the cave was actually the entrance to the lair of the foul creature that had taken her sister.

"With what little strength was left to her, she managed to crawl deeper into the mountain until the passage opened into a broad chamber. It was there that she finally found her sister, sitting beside the great black bulk of the beast and singing to it. She called out then, and the singing stopped. Both turned to look at her. Then the monster demanded to know who she was and what she was doing in its house.

"'I am no one,' she said. 'Only the sister of one you have taken. And I want nothing except to remain at my sister's side.'

"But the creature would have none of it. Though its own appearance was grotesque, it had surrounded itself with all things that it considered beautiful. The cavern was filled with silver, gold, and brilliant gemstones that had been taken in raids upon villages both far and wide. And so, when the beast looked upon the second sister, it said, 'Your skin is like leather. Your hair is like straw. Your clothes are in shreds, and your arms and legs are not much better off. Why should I allow something so hideous to remain here amid such beauty?' When the girl failed to respond, it fell to the first sister to answer instead.

"'There is beauty in this world that cannot be seen,' she said. 'The sound of a rippling brook. The smell of a rain-kissed flower. The feel of a cool breeze on a warm day. The heart of a person who would give up everything they have to help another. What greater beauty could you ever hope to add to your collection than that?'

"The monster gravely considered these words for a long while until, finally, it relented. It allowed both sisters to stay, and with time, the three of them eventually settled into a strangely contented life together. But strangest of all was that the monster never again flew out to pillage and plunder, for it did not feel any need to add greater beauty to its horde than what it already possessed."

The words of Anna's story had had nearly as profound an impact upon Elsa as they'd had upon the dark creature that lived within it. She'd lost count of the number of times that she'd reread those precious pages in the quiet solitude of her room. In particular, the brief exchange between the monster and the sister had imprinted itself so firmly upon Elsa's psyche, she could recall and recite it perfectly with no effort whatsoever. And as they had every single time she'd ever read that passage, they brought with them a turmoil of emotions. A few new ones had found their way into the mix this time as well.

"I tried to draw that last scene so many times," she confided to Anna through the door. "I could see the sisters clearly enough, though I suppose that wasn't surprising since they always looked like you and me. But I could never get the monster right. You described it so well in your story, yet everything I tried seemed wrong in one way or another. I really felt that there was more to it than just its ugliness. I wanted to capture its strength and wisdom and loneliness, too. Yet no matter how often I tried, I could never get the likeness to be everything that I thought it needed to be.

"I only gave up when I finally realized the true source of the problem. You see, I wasn't really trying to draw your monster. I was trying to draw my own! I was trying to draw my magic. I wanted so badly to make visible the thing that had separated us. More than that, I wanted to show everyone – you and Mother and Father, but myself most of all – an ending where somehow the very thing that had pushed us apart managed to bring us back together again.

"The reason I could never draw it was because I didn't actually believe in that ending. I was convinced that my magic would always stand between us, that it would keep us apart forever. No matter what ended up on the paper, it always felt like a lie to me. And so, I gave up. I stopped trying, in so many ways.

"Oh, Anna!" she exclaimed, and her voice broke. She had to swallow several times before she could continue, and even then, her words came out strangely thick. "Please don't let me be right about that! Not that. After the Great Thaw, I thought… I thought that maybe the ending to our story had changed. Or could be changed, or… Well, that at least if the monster couldn't bring us together, maybe it didn't necessarily have to keep us apart either. For the first time in ages, I allowed myself to feel something other than fear. I felt… hope.

"Yet here we are, and the monster has pulled us further apart than ever! Only the monster isn't my magic. I know exactly what it looks like now. Beautiful and horrible. Strong yet brittle. Wise but wicked.

"The Snow Queen is the monster, Anna! It's always been her. It was because of her that we were torn apart as children. Then she stole you away from our home and took away your memories so that, even when I finally found you, an entire lifetime still separated us from each other.

"Well, I'm not going to let her win. Do you hear me? I'm not! And you can't either! If my powers came from her, then I guess they're part of the monster, too. But that means whatever magic I'm using to talk to you now, whatever allowed me to reach into your mind and find you here, whatever this is… let this be the ending of your story. Let this be the part of the monster that brings us together again!

"Please, Anna... Come back to us. Come back from wherever it is you're hiding. Come back to Kristoff, Olaf, Sven. Come back to everyone who loves you.

"Come back to me."

Her last word was barely intelligible, smothered as it was by a choked sob. Elsa couldn't stop the tears, but she clamped one hand over her mouth to try and stifle the noise she was making. She was straining to hear some response, any response, through the door. As before, she did not know what else she could possibly say. She had poured out her own memories, hoping that they might be enough to fill the empty cistern of Anna's mind. They had to be, for she could not find another drop to give.

The hollow silence seemed to echo with her failure.

"Elsa?"

She did not want to look at Fare. She did not want to hear any more useless advice that accomplished nothing. Nor did she want sympathy, pity, or understanding. Her hand left her mouth and its fingers clawed futilely at the door, as ineffective as everything else she had done. If she couldn't bring Anna back, then she might as well stay here, as close to her sister as she would ever be again.

"Elsa, look. I think… I think something's happening."

She felt a hand come to rest upon her shoulder. Its tug tried to pull her away from the door, away from Anna. She tried to wave it off but it persisted, only growing more forceful and insistent. Finally, overflowing with anger and pain, Elsa spun around, batting the arm fiercely away.

"Fare, leave me alone!"

The other woman didn't say a thing. She simply pointed at an empty frame that hung on the wall next to the door. Except... the frame wasn't entirely empty.

Elsa stared at it uncomprehendingly. Faint black marks had marred the pristine white of the canvas. Even as she watched, more marks continued to appear. The marks became lines. The lines became shapes. The shapes became figures. There seemed to be three of them, or perhaps four? It was difficult to tell. The image was still vague and indistinct, though an invisible hand was adding more and more detail at a slow but steady pace. Though hesitant at first, it seemed to be growing in confidence with each and every stroke.

Almost despite herself, Elsa climbed to her feet. Loathe though she was to move away from the door, she was drawn to the image. She needed to see it and see it properly, not from the odd angle of her seated vantage point. She moved to stand beside Fare, and they both gazed at the evolving picture.

The first face Elsa recognized was her own.

She gasped and immediately clutched Fare's arm, leaning on her for support. They both watched, transfixed, as the sketchy depiction of their shared visage slowly filled in, becoming more solid and sure. Then the second figure began to take on more definite characteristics. It was huge and hulking, towering over Elsa's slender form in the drawing. Tufts of bristly hair poked out in odd and irregular patches all across its thick body. Two broken fangs protruded crookedly from its snarling mouth. One eye was keen, black and beady, while the other remained blindly white. Great leathery wings, half unfurled, protruded from its back.

Elsa's grip upon Fare's elbow tightened as she recognized beyond question the monstrous creature that Anna had described so vividly in her story.

The third and final figure took the longest to form. It progressed in fits and starts, as if the artist wasn't at all sure of the form it ought to take and was constantly second-guessing every single line. The uncertain tentativeness was almost painful to watch, and doubly so for Elsa. She stood stock still, barely breathing, only her eyes moving as they followed every new stroke. The body took shape first – trunk, then legs, then the arms. Immediately thereafter, though, there came an excruciatingly long pause during which not a single mark appeared. Elsa's eyes darted all across the canvas, hoping to spot something new being added in some other corner, but none were to be found.

Hesitantly, reluctantly, Elsa released her grip on Fare and advanced a few small steps closer to the incomplete memory. She stared intently at the blankness where the final face ought to be, willing it to come into view. When it did not, she lifted her hand and brushed the spot with the barest touch of a fingertip.

"Here, Anna," she whispered. "This is where you ought to be. The one place you can always come back to. The one place where you will always, _always_ belong. Right here." Her hand drifted to one side, and one finger lightly touched the canvas again. "Beside me."

She waited. It seemed like she had spent most of her life waiting. Months waiting with impatient excitement after her parents had told her she would soon be getting a little sister. More months waiting for Anna to learn to walk, talk, and run. Hours waiting in dread to find out if what her magic had done to her sister could be undone. Years waiting, hoping she could find some way to control her powers before they destroyed everything she loved. Three fearful years of waiting after her parents had died, feeling horribly unready to bear the weight of the crown. Waiting in the months leading up the coronation for something to slip, for that one terrible mistake that would expose her secret to the world. Waiting as, with Kristoff and Sven, she'd pursued Anna all the way up the Scandinavian Peninsula, hoping against hope that they would be in time to save her sister. As she continued to stare at the blank patch of canvas, she couldn't help but wonder: Would the waiting never end?

And then, it did.

Faint marks appeared and formed the round outline of a face. Then additional lines became hair and the suggestion of twin braids hanging down along either side of the neck. Two large eyes. A pert nose. A mouth curving upward in a generous smile. Elsa gaped as the features solidified into a likeness that she knew so very well.

There was a blinding flash of light. Elsa blinked away the afterimages, trying to focus again on the picture before her. When it finally swam back into view, she started in surprise. Unlike the images she had filled in earlier, this one remained as simple black-and-white line art. But like those earlier pictures, it was also now moving. The massive figure in the middle – the one who stood behind the sisters and whose looming presence seemed poised to thrust them asunder and separate them forever – was changing.

The thin lines moved like worms crawling across the canvas. The creature's shape shifted and, as Elsa watched, the great beast gave way to something slimmer, fairer, but no less menacing. Within seconds, the Snow Queen was staring out of the frame, her eyes boring straight into Elsa's. She could not tear her gaze away. The sight of one nightmarish monster becoming the other had touched a primal fear within her that had momentarily robbed her of all sense and reason.

Which was why, when she felt a hand upon her shoulder, she screamed.

"Elsa!" Fare exclaimed, grabbing her with both hands and spinning her around so that she faced eyes far less terrifying and much more familiar. "Elsa, look!" Fare took one hand away from Elsa's arm to gesture with a broad sweep at the gallery walls. Elsa turned her head, and her eyes grew wide and round.

Every frame was filled with colorful, moving images. Faces, places, objects, and moments all spun through short snippets of time. Elsa recognized most of them, though there were some she did not. It took her a few seconds to realize that the previously silent hall was also now filled with a low murmur, not unlike the voices of a crowd talking quietly amongst themselves while they waited for the curtain to rise and the play to begin. She strained to hear what they were saying, trying to pick out individual voices from amidst the muddle.

She was so intent on this endeavor that she almost didn't register the sound that came from directly behind her. That she started to turn around was more an instinctive reaction than the result of any conscious thought. So it was that the meaning of the quiet noise finally sunk in at almost the exact same moment that her eyes provided visual confirmation for her conclusion.

The sound had been the faint click of a latch being undone. The door through which her sister had fled now stood slightly ajar.

"Anna?" Elsa asked. Her voice was filled with hope, yet it remained all too fragile. Had she really done it, despite having had absolutely no idea what she'd been doing the entire time? It seemed impossible. She needed proof. She needed to see for herself. She needed to see her sister's face, to see the recognition there when Anna looked back at her.

Sparing a quick glance at Fare, Elsa walked forward. Laying one hand flat against the door, she pushed it open…

• • •

"E-el-elsa!"

She felt ice wrap around her chest, felt the cold pressure against her body before she was fully aware of her surroundings. Not that any of that mattered. The sound of that one word, stammered out as if through chattering teeth, was all she needed to hear. Her own arms returned the embrace with equal fervor as she hugged Anna tightly to her.

"I'm here, Anna" she crooned reassuringly, stroking her sister's frost-whitened hair. "I'm here. You're safe. It's over. It's all over. You don't need to be afraid. You're free at last." Tears of joy ran down Elsa's face and dropped onto Anna's head. Wherever they landed, the ice melted away, allowing a pool of fiery red to form upon her crown and spread from there all the way down to the tips of her braids.

"Are you okay?" Elsa asked solicitously. "Is everything back to normal? How do you feel?"

"C-c-cold, cold, c-cold," Anna replied with a shudder that shook her entire body.

"Oh!" Elsa exclaimed, embarrassed at her own foolishness. Lifting one hand off Anna's back, she gave a dismissive wave that started at her sister's neck and dropped until it took in her entire body. This time, there was no resistance. The ice armor sublimated away in the blink of an eye, and Elsa felt Anna press even more closely to her now that the plates that had separated them were gone. Her shivering was more obvious than ever, and this left Elsa wishing that her own body was able to offer up as much warmth as a normal person's.

The next thing she knew, another set of arms were wrapping around her... and around Anna as well. Kristoff! The snow soldier that had been guarding him had withdrawn its blade, and the ice harvester had wasted no time in enveloping Anna in a mighty hug. A second later and Sven was nuzzling up against the three of them, doing his best to add his thick winter coat to the efforts to warm his friend, whose skin was beginning to regaining its original color as well.

Olaf bounced about their feet, grinning up at them with such excitement that he had not yet realized he'd somehow managed to get his left arm and his nose mixed up while he was putting himself back together. Rohl stood a short distance away, clearly happy to be witness to the joyful reunion even if he didn't quite feel like he himself had yet earned the right to be a part of it.

Elsa would have been content to remain like that forever, and she'd have bet anything that the rest of her peculiar little family felt the same. Unfortunately, they were not the only parties there who had a say in such matters.

'It worked!" the Snow Queen exclaimed from where she was still seated upon her throne. Her tone was tinged with surprise, disbelief, wonder, and a strange eagerness. "Is it possible? Did you truly manage it? You were able to restore your sister's memories? Quick, quick, tell me, child. What all do you remember?"

"Everything," Anna said, her voice muffled against Elsa's chest. "I remember everything. Every horrible, evil thing you did to me. Every terrible, cruel thing you made me do. I remember it all." Elsa felt her sister shudder again, then suddenly stiffen. Anna pulled slightly away, just enough that she could look up and meet Elsa's eyes. Her own held a mixture of fear, guilt, and… and something else.

"Elsa," she whispered. "I remember it all. Everything!"

"Shh," Elsa soothed. "It's all right. It wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could have done."

Anna shook her head. "But..."

"Enough!" the Snow Queen proclaimed, springing to her feet. "It is time we settled the terms of our agreement. I have given you the opportunity to restore your sister's memories, which you have now done. In return, she and the rest of your friends are free to go. Only you must remain, Elsa, in fulfillment of the bargain that you made."

Anna looked past Elsa to the Snow Queen's haughty face, then back again to her sister's far more sorrowful one. Her own expression was one of perplexed fear.

"Elsa?" she asked. "Elsa, what have you done?"


	34. A Shattered Rainbow

**A/N: So I thought this chapter was going to be an easy one to write. Boy, was I ever wrong! Nor did it help that I came down sick last weekend, and since weekends are when I get most of my writing done these days… Sigh. Anyway, sorry for the wait.**

"I tried, Anna. I tried to fight her, but… I wasn't strong enough. I couldn't win. The only way I could guarantee your freedom, your safety was to..."

"No!" Anna struggled out of the group embrace and immediately pushed her way past Elsa, firmly planting herself between the Snow Queen and her friends. "You don't get to take my sister!"

The Snow Queen's eyebrows arched imperiously. "I shall do as I please. I have that right. She is what she is today because of me."

But Anna shook her head furiously. "No, you couldn't be more wrong. What you did left her so frightened, she hid from the entire world for most of her life. She became who she is in spite of that, not because of it."

"We are shaped by our adversities," the Snow Queen replied. "They are the anvil upon which our steel is forged. What strength we possess comes from the trials we have each endured."

"Or maybe it's the strength we already have that lets us get through them," Anna countered. "You didn't give Elsa that. Our mother and father did. They're the ones who showed us what it means to be strong. And they taught us right from wrong, something you apparently never learned. The right thing to do when you care about someone is to be there for them, to help them and guide them whenever you can. That's what being a family is all about.

"But you, you just walked away! You swooped in, poked and prodded and generally made a mess of things, and then you left. You had no right to do that then, and you most certainly don't have any rights of any kind now!"

"Oh, but I do. You see, your sister agreed..."

"Yeah, I know. I was right here, remember? Because I certainly do, thanks to Elsa. She agreed that she would stay with you on one condition: that you would restore my memories. But you didn't. She did! So technically, you never really made any deal at all, did you?"

At that, a look of vexation passed across the Snow Queen's face. It was short-lived, however, and she recovered quickly. "Well, in that case, then there was also no bargain struck for your freedom. If you wish to remain my prisoner so very badly..."

"I do," Anna said, lifting her chin defiantly, "if it's the only way that Elsa and I can stay together."

"Anna, no!" Elsa hurried forward and grabbed her sister by the arm. "You can't do that! Just… just leave me here. I'll be fine. She wouldn't have gone through so much trouble if she wanted to hurt me. But you! You wouldn't survive here for long – not in these temperatures. You need to go home, back to Arendelle. Our people need someone to wear the crown and..."

"And it needs to be you, Elsa," Anna avowed earnestly. "Not me. You. I won't leave without you."

"And if Anna's staying, then so am I," Kristoff added, coming up to stand behind the two sisters. With a snort of solidarity, Sven trotted up beside him.

"Gee," said Olaf, who was rubbing his chin thoughtfully after finally getting his parts properly sorted. "If everybody's staying here, that's going to be an awful lot of furniture to move."

"Anna..." The mere tone of Elsa's voice pleaded with her sister to see reason.

"Besides," said Anna, ignoring the entreaty and turning to again address the Snow Queen, "why do you really want Elsa anyway? For the entire journey here, you made your distaste clear for… well, pretty much everybody. I find it hard to believe you did all this just for the company. For that matter, it makes no sense why you would have bothered to kidnap Kai or any of the other children before then if you really detest people so very much. So just what is it you're trying to do here?"

The Snow Queen gave Anna a look that couldn't quite decide whether it wanted to be an annoyed glare or a cunning appraisal. Either way, it seemed designed to intimidate, but it failed to have its desired effect. Anna stared back steadily and stubbornly, her posture and body language loudly proclaiming that she was ready to wait as long as it might take to get an answer. Even so, she appeared slightly surprised when she actually got one.

"I am trying," the Snow Queen said, her voice suddenly filled with the deepest weariness, "to forget."

Anna blinked. "Forget? Forget what?"

A bitter, mirthless laugh escaped the Snow Queen, as unlike the girlish giggle she had once affected in the palace courtyard as it was possible to be. "So very much," she answered. "Mistakes. Regrets. Hopes. Dreams. Things lost that will never return. Tragedies and miseries beyond anything you could possibly comprehend. Entire lifetimes, as you would measure them. My past is far too cluttered. It is long overdue for a thorough scouring."

Anna was not the only one perplexed by these statements. "But," Elsa ventured, her debate with Anna temporarily driven from her mind, "you can already alter memories. You made Anna forget, just like you did to our mother and Kai and Queen Olavine..."

"Well, of course I can," the Snow Queen snapped irritably. "I have spent years beyond count, traveled far and wide, sought out all knowledge I could find regarding the workings of the mind. I explored every possibility for how memories might be manipulated, how a person's past could be erased. I found ways to alter the most insignificant of details. I discovered how to wipe the slate completely clean. I learned everything there was to know about such magics. Unfortunately, that included one critical detail.

"I cannot perform any of it on myself.

"There is a fundamental problem, you see. In order to eliminate a specific memory, you must first find it. And to find it, you must know it. You have to remember what it is that you wish to forget. Yet it is impossible to both remember and forget at the same time. It cannot be done. Every attempt to recall the details that you want destroyed only ends up reinforcing them, rendering all your efforts futile."

"So you need someone else to erase the memories for you," Elsa concluded. "But if you already searched the whole world over for those who knew anything about such magics, surely one of them could have done it."

"Do you think I did not try exactly that? I tracked down shamans, enchantresses, witches, wizards, sorcerers, and conjurers from every nation and magical heritage. I sought help from humans, spirits, demons, and countless other creatures many of which no longer walk this earth. None could do what I asked of them, for my mind was far too different from their own."

"But," Anna interrupted, "Grand Pabbie was able to alter my memories!"

The Snow Queen scoffed. "Yes, and a shoddy job he did of it, too. I saw his work when I was inside your head. Terribly crude. The alterations stood out like a toddler's scribbles upon an illuminated manuscript. What he did only worked because human recall is already so vague and imprecise that such inaccuracies would hardly be noticed amid all the usual messiness. That held doubly true in the memories of a young child.

"The irony," she continued, "is that the trolls tend to be among the most skilled mystics when it comes to memory magics. Indeed, when I approached them during my search, I did so with high hopes that they might finally be the ones to offer the solution that I had been unable to find anywhere else." She snorted derisively. "Unfortunately, they ended up being no help at all. Their elder took one look inside my mind and then fled, screaming in a fit of hysterical madness. What she had encountered was so far beyond her comprehension, it parted her from her sanity in an instant."

Elsa glanced back at Rohl who, despite his stony complexion, had somehow contrived to turn slightly pale at the callous way in which the Snow Queen had just described the horrific fate that had befallen his tribe untold generations ago. She thought that she could hear his teeth grinding with a sound like millstones as he tried to contain his outrage and indignity at such casual effrontery.

"Whoa, hang on!" Anna exclaimed, drawing Elsa's attention back again. "Just peeking into your mind did that to the poor troll? If trolls are the best at memory magic, what in the world makes you think that Elsa can possibly do what they couldn't? Or, after all the trouble you've gone through, do you plan to just stand by and watch while the same thing happens to her?"

Anna found herself pinned with a look of scornful exasperation. "When you have searched the entire world over yet failed to find the thing you were seeking, you have but two choices. You must learn to live without it, or you must create it yourself. I have attempted both, though I have not yet been successful at either. I am hopeful that is about to change."

"Wait, so that's what it was all about? You took Kai – and however many other children besides – just to try to turn them into… into tools you could use to erase your own memories?"

Both sisters looked around, surprised that Kristoff had suddenly injected himself into the conversation again, much less that he should be the one to put all the pieces together. Their slightly startled expressions made him pause. "What?" he asked. Then his thick brows drew down in mild aggravation. "I do pay attention, you know."

"Yes," the Snow Queen said, answering Kristoff's earlier question. "That was my intent. As I said before, the mind of a child is almost infinitely malleable. With suitable care and the right persuasion, it can be shaped into nearly anything.

"Unfortunately, 'almost' and 'nearly' were enough to foil my every attempt. Even when I wiped their memories clean so that I might start afresh, my efforts to mold them into what I needed them to be ended in failure time and time again. I tried to replace their emotions with logic and reason so that they would be able to better understand their lessons without prejudice, and so that the horrors I would be asking them to expunge might not affect them so. Obviously, all such measures proved dreadfully inadequate. Nothing I tried ever came close.

"More than once, I nearly abandoned the whole idea as impossible nonsense. I would swear to myself that I was done trying, and I would uphold my pledge for years upon years. But then some new wrinkle would come to me when I was least expecting it and, however much I tried to ignore it, it would nag at me until I found myself traveling out to make just one more attempt."

"And your last attempt was me." Elsa stated this matter-of-factly, but the Snow Queen gave a nod of mute acknowledgment.

"Except that it almost wasn't," Anna said slowly, her voice filling with a burgeoning understanding. "It was almost our mother!" Elsa shot a startled look at her sister, but Anna continued to speak directly to the Snow Queen. "Back in the palace courtyard, you said that you met our mother twice: once when she was pregnant with Elsa, but also once before that when she was just a child. And you said you always sought out children to manipulate with your magics. She was going to be your next victim, wasn't she?"

The Snow Queen frowned. "I had thought that she might potentially make a good subject" – and she stressed the word in contrast to Anna's chosen description – "when I first met her, yes. She was already possessed of a sharp mind and a quick wit. I will admit, I took a genuine liking to her during our brief conversation. It seemed clear to me that she was destined for much more than the rustic life she was then living, and part of me wanted to be the one to help her to realize all that untapped potential."

"So what stopped you?" Anna asked, and where another might have spat out the question with caustic sarcasm, her voice seemed to hold only genuine curiosity.

"I remembered all too well every single one of my past failures." The Snow Queen's perpetually youthful face seemed to age before their eyes as weariness pulled its every line downward. Or maybe it was… Could it have been regret? Perhaps even grief? "Your mother, young though she was, reminded me of someone. Nor am I speaking of myself, though I will admit, there were flashes there that did seem familiar in that way. No, she reminded me of… of a friend I had known a long, long time ago. In my youth, I suppose you might say. Her name had been Idun as well, you see."

Elsa was ready with a question of her own, but before she could get it out, Anna was already talking again. "This friend of yours," she began, and there was a strange tightness in her voice that caused Elsa to glance at her curiously. "Was it only the name that she and our mother had in common, or was it more than that? I mean… what was she like?"

Now Elsa's curious gaze found its twin in the measuring look that the Snow Queen gave Anna. There was, in fact, a considerable delay during which everyone seemed to be regarding the princess as though she might perhaps have taken leave of her senses. None of her companions could understand why she had suddenly taken such an interest in a random acquaintance from her captor's past. If Anna noticed their attention, she gave no sign, but instead kept her regard fixed firmly upon the Snow Queen.

When an answer arrived at last, it came out somewhat haltingly. It was as though the Snow Queen were choosing her words with exceptional care, or else that each one spoken cost her dearly. "She was… quite lovely. Generous and kind. She had a trusting heart, almost to a fault. I do not think she knew how to hold a grudge. She always shared freely with all, even those who some might say had wronged her."

"What did she share?" Anna prodded, thus earning a redoubling of the strange looks from all those around her but most especially from the one of whom she had asked the question.

"Many things," the Snow Queen replied, "though chiefly, fruit from her orchard, Apples."

As Elsa watched, Anna's hands rose up to cover her mouth while her eyes abruptly grew wide and round. Even as they continued to stare at this woman who had abducted her, Elsa could see the light of some realization dawning in them, though what it might be, she herself had not the slightest idea.

"Anna?" she said softly, reaching out a hand and laying it gently upon her sister's shoulder. "Anna, what is it? What's wrong?"

At first, all Anna could do was shake her head a few degrees back and forth. Her sudden muteness only worried Elsa all the more, especially when she took an almost involuntary step backward away from the Snow Queen. But then, her words somewhat muffled by the fingers that still hovered before her lips, Anna spoke. She did not seem to be talking to anyone but herself.

"It can't be. It just can't. And yet… It all makes sense. Doesn't it? Her magic. Powers over ice and snow. Her loneliness. Her agelessness. Her sled and the pictures on its panels. Yggdrasil, the world tree. The death of Ysir and the creation of the world from his remains. Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods. Her bow and her..." She shook her head a second time. "Idun," she whispered, and her eyes managed to grow wider still. "Idun and…

"And Skadi?"

Elsa's head whipped around as, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Snow Queen stiffen. The woman's face had gone just as rigid – empty and blank, betraying no emotion. Yet those brilliantly blue eyes bored into her sister's with such intensity that Elsa began to fear for Anna's safety all over again.

"Skadi?" Kristoff repeated, clearly perplexed. "Who's Skadi?"

"Didn't you ever learn your mythology?" Elsa asked without looking at him. Her gaze remained fixed upon the Snow Queen as she tried to grasp the full implications of Anna's words.

"Troll mythology, sure," he replied, "but I somehow get the impression that's not what we're talking about here."

"Mythology," the Snow Queen scoffed disdainfully. "Mankind's arrogance knows no bounds. A faith followed for centuries with a pantheon of gods worshiped every bit as fervently as those to whom you now pray, yet today, it cannot even be granted the small dignity of being called a religion. Instead it is belittled, considered nothing more than a series of quaint fables. Its long-dead disciples are viewed with something akin to pity that they should have been so naive and foolish as to believe in such fairy tales, yet you live with absolute certainty that the new bedtime stories you tell yourselves are somehow different – superior and, of course, completely true."

Anna, who had grown rather inured to such diatribes during the long journey northward, waited until this one ended before answering Kristoff's question. "Skadi was the ancient Norse goddess of winter," she explained. "She was the daughter of the giant Thiazi and a mighty huntress, particularly known for her skill with a bow."

"And I take it she was friends with another goddess named Idun?"

Now it was Elsa's turn to shake her head and, as the pieces began to come together in her own mind, she took over the telling of the tale. "According to the legends, three gods – Odin, Loki, and Hœnir – were traveling on a journey through the mountains when they found themselves in need of food. Spotting a herd of oxen in a valley, they slew one and set the carcass over a fire. They soon found, however, that the meat would not cook.

"Then a voice came from the tree above them and, when they looked up, they saw a great eagle. This was Thiazi in disguise, and it was he who kept the meat from cooking. He promised that he would lift his magic if only they would let him share in their meal. The gods relented, but Thiazi then ate so greedily, claiming all the best bits for himself, that Loki grew angry and impaled the eagle with a wooden staff. Thiazi then took to the air, dragging Loki into the sky with him as he clung to the makeshift spear, unable to free himself.

"Thiazi agreed to release Loki on one condition: that he would bring the goddess Idun and her magic apples out of Asgard and deliver her to the giant. Loki agreed and, at the appointed time, went to Idun. He told her that he had found a tree with apples that appeared to be every bit as marvelous as her own, and that she really ought to come with him to see it and bring her own apples so that they might compare. Idun followed him and, once they were in the forest, the great eagle swooped down and carried her away.

"When the other gods discovered what had happened, they were furious with Loki. On threat of torture and death, he agreed that he would rescue her. With a bit of magic that gave him the shape of a raven, he flew to Jotunheim, the home of the giants. Finding Thiazi away and Idun left alone, he snatched her up and fled. But then Thiazi returned and, finding his prize gone, again transformed into his eagle form and sped off in pursuit.

"The gods saw the two birds approaching. Odin, realizing what it meant, immediately ordered that a fire be set ablaze atop the walls of Asgard. As Loki flew over it with Thiazi right behind, the flames roared up and caught the giant. His wings badly burnt, he fell to the ground below where he was set upon by the gods and killed."

Kristoff grimaced. "Kidnapping and murder? That hardly seems like the best foundation for a particularly close friendship."

The Snow Queen, her face still somber, gave a small shrug. "Surprises abound in life. Not even Odin the Allfather, who ever sought out knowledge in all its many forms, could clearly see things before they came to pass. When I learned of my father's death at the hands of the Aesir, my wrath burned as hot as the fires that had brought him low. Girding myself for war, I marched upon Asgard to seek my vengeance. But the Aesir had no quarrel with me, for I had done them no wrong. Indeed, they offered recompense for my loss and agreed to all my demands. So it was that I took Njord as my husband and, through marriage, joined them.

"Even then, though, any sort of friendship between myself and Idun would have seemed to all to have been most unlikely. Not only had my father abducted and imprisoned her, but we as women were quite different. I was ever one to seek out the bracing cold of ice and snow while Idun was drawn to the warm fertility of forests and orchards. I was a warrior's daughter and loved the hunt. She was more reserved and thoughtful, preferring instead the quiet peace of music and poetry. Perhaps that was why her marriage to Bragi the minstrel was far more successful than mine to Njord.

"And yet, once I had settled amongst the Aesir, I sought her out to apologize for my father's behavior, for I did not wish old enmities to sour this new future that lay before me. Much to my surprise – and hers too, I believe – we ended up talking all through that night until dawn broke upon us the next morning. It is a strange thing the way our fates can become intertwined with the most unlikely of others, but that was the beginning of a deep and abiding friendship that we ever renewed whenever our various travels would bring us together again."

A faint smile had formed on the Snow Queen's face as she had recounted this most unexpected of friendships. Now, however, it began to falter and, within moments, had vanished completely. In its place came a look of bitter sadness and painful regret. "It is the first of many things," she said quietly, "that I wish to forget."

Anna and Elsa exchanged confused glances. "Why?" Anna asked first. "Why would you ever want to forget a friendship like that?"

The Snow Queen heaved a sigh. "Because it reminds me of what came later," she answered bleakly. "Of the pain of its loss, and of everything else that was taken from me that I will never know again."

"What happened? How did you lose it? Did you and Idun have some sort of falling out or… or something?"

"Idun is dead. They all are dead."

Stunned silence followed this pronouncement. "That… that doesn't make sense," Elsa said at last. "If all those old stories are actually true, then the gods were immortal. In fact, it was by eating Idun's fruit that they were able to remain eternally young. Nothing should have been able to disrupt that save the great battle of Ragnarok that would bring about the end of the universe."

At that, another harsh laugh escaped the Snow Queen. "My dear girl," she said condescendingly, "the end of all things came to pass when your race had barely even been born."

Elsa stared back at her in continued disbelief. "But that can't be. The prophecies that described Ragnarok foretold the destruction of all creation. The very heavens were to be consumed and the earth scorched by fire. If Ragnarok had already happened, we shouldn't even be here!"

"Yes, well... The stories we tell tend to change in the retelling, do they not? I should know. I was the one who told all of those tales to the men of this land when first they began to grasp the concept of this thing called language. I told them of my people – of their heroism and their follies, of their courage and their cowardice, of their great deeds and petty squabbles. Back then, I had hoped that your fledgling race might learn from both our triumphs and mistakes and in the process also keep alive the memory of what was no more.

"Yet as I said, mankind is nothing if not arrogant. They accepted the stories eagerly enough, but they were not content to leave them as they were. No, they had to insert themselves into the tales. Before I knew it, my people had somehow become gods. Man sought to give reason to his existence and so made himself our creation. I suppose it was inevitable then that the end of my world slowly turned into the end of this one as well.

"But you see, Ragnarok was not prophesy. Ragnarok was history. It was how everything I ever knew came undone, and it was how I ended up stranded here alone when all else crumbled."

The Snow Queen – Skadi? – began to pace back and forth before her throne, and her agitation spilled over into her voice as well. "Some truth still remained in the versions of events that passed through the generations of your people. Odin and the rest of the Aesir knew that the great battle was approaching, but it was no prophesy that brought such foreknowledge. They had made many enemies and had not treated all of them as fairly as they had me. Great unrest had been growing both in my homeland of Jotunheim as well as in Muspelheim, the land of fire. Some form of confrontation seemed inevitable.

"Then came the day when Loki, who had been imprisoned for his part in the death of Odin's son Baldr, escaped along with his own son, Fenrir. They fled to our enemies and, finding there a hatred of the Aesir equal to their own, rallied them against us. So it was that Heimdall the watchman spied the approach of an army greater in size and power than any that had ever before been seen. The Aesir united in defense of Asgard, but even they held little hope of withstanding an assault from such an overwhelming force.

"As the onslaught fell upon Asgard, the worst fears of the Aesir were proven true. Powerful though they were, it was clear that victory in this battle would not be possible. Even so, they refused to yield, and they fought with every ounce of strength they yet possessed. Their enemies broke through the great walls of the fortress and drove the defenders ever back. All too soon, they came within striking distance of the great Bifröst."

"The what?" asked Kristoff.

"The rainbow bridge that connects this world to the realm of the gods," Elsa explained.

The Snow Queen nodded. "I was among those defending the bridge," she explained. "We fought to protect it, to keep our foes from crossing to this world and unleashing untold havoc upon it. Yet we were hopelessly outnumbered and it became clear that we would soon be overrun. The sons of Muspell were merciless in their attacks. All around me, one Aesir after another fell beneath their assault. I myself was driven back onto the Bifröst, a last desperate warrior and the only thing left standing between the ravagers and Midgard.

"I knew that I could not hope to repel them. So, as they advanced onto the bridge, I turned and ran, their taunts and jeers ringing in my ears. But I did not flee to save my own life. Instead, I stopped on the far side of the Bifröst where I turned and watched their approach. The vast army poured out onto the bridge. The Aesir had build it with skill and art beyond any other, yet still it groaned under the weight it now bore.

"As the vanguard crested the top of the Bifröst's arc, I drew an arrow from my quiver and nocked it to my bow, pulling it back as far as the mighty bowstring would allow. Then, taking careful aim, I loosed it at what I judged to be the weakest point of the great expanse. It ricocheted off without leaving even the slightest damage to mark its impact. Still, I had already drawn back another and fired it so that it struck the exact same spot. Arrow after arrow I loosed until but one remained to me and the hordes of Muspelheim had nearly reached my chosen target.

"With all the strength left in my body, I drew back what I knew would be my final shot. I could feel both bow and string vibrating with the strain, and I fought to keep them still. As the boot of their great captain was about to come crashing down upon that one miniscule point, I fired. The string broke. My proud bow splintered. Yet the arrow flew true and slammed into the Bifröst – head, shaft, and feather. The creaking of the bridge grew louder and louder. Cracks shot outward from that one weakened point, spreading almost unseen beneath the feet of the enemy host. Then with a terrible crash and the roars from thousands of throats, the Bifröst shattered. The sons of Muspell fell, plunging into the boiling waters below.

"I fell as well. Yet the last crumbling vestiges of the bridge bore me not into the rivers Körmt and Örmt. Instead, I ended up here, in the far northern reaches of Midgard that I had visited so often during happier times. The battle had nearly sapped the last of my strength, and I lay sprawled upon my back where I had landed. I stared up into the sky as my senses slowly faded. But even as darkness took me, I watched the ruined fragments of the rainbow bridge as they danced across the heavens. They remain there to this day and, when conditions are right, they can still be seen even by mortal eyes."

"The aurora," gasped Anna.

"But..." Elsa stammered. "But… Idun! I don't understand. The legends said that the gods needed Idun's apples to remain forever young. But if you've been trapped here alone for all this time, how can you possibly still be so… so..."

"Because," the Snow Queen said with a distinct air of impatience, "attempting to explain immortality to mortals is like trying to describe a mountain to a flea. Unlike man, the bodies of my race do not wither and sicken. We can still be killed but, barring that, we will never die from the mere vicissitudes of time. Nor does it take any more effort on our part to remain ageless than it takes for your kind to grow old. It is merely the way we are.

"But therein lies the rub. For you see, the mind is bound to the brain is bound to the body. And as our bodies are immune to the ravages of passing years, so too are our minds. That which comes naturally to you humans is denied to us. We cannot forget. We remember everything that we have ever learned, every experience we have ever had in perfect, crystal clarity.

"For you, grief fades. The pain of loss dulls. Those you knew and loved recede into the past until only the most important things you shared with them remain with any real potency. Yet for us, it is all as yesterday. The sight of my people lying dead at the feet of the invading army, their screams of pain and shouts of desperate bravery, the stink of the carnage – all remain in my mind as though I still stood in the midst of the battlefield.

"Idun's apples did indeed keep us young, but in a way that those who passed along the stories could not begin to comprehend. We needed not their help to keep age from our bodies. No, what the magic in those fruits gave to us was the blessed gift of forgetfulness. The anguish that drowns the spirit, the remembrances of every horrid failure, the awful sense of futility that comes from realizing how little we have each of us accomplished despite everything that we have attempted to do – all swept away with that first bite.

"That was what allowed us to keep going. And yes, perhaps it meant that we repeated mistakes that we might not otherwise have made. But without that sweet relief, we would have been so crippled by the weight of all that we had done that our lives would have been nothing more than an endless misery of replaying those same mistakes over and over and over again. Idun's grace allowed us retain some measure of wisdom without losing ourselves in an eternity of knowledge."

The Snow Queen's head hung morosely as her pacing came to a halt directly before her icy throne. "But my friend is gone. All I knew and loved has long since turned to dust. And I have been forced to carry that burden for untold ages of man, its horror ever undiminished for me.

"For a while, I tried to subsume it beneath new memories. I tried to become a teacher to those with whom I now shared my new home. I traveled the world and taught them, helped them when I could. Like a parent, I could not do everything. Some things they needed to learn on their own. Mistakes often teach more than successes, and so I had to watch as they made those too. Still, I could offer advice here, give a little nudge there. And I hoped that perhaps I could create some small goodness out of my own private tragedy.

"I was a fool. I allowed myself to care, thinking I could in some way replace those I had lost. But then I watched as those I tried to teach grew old and died. Their children followed, then their children's children. Nothing lasted. My lessons became warped and twisted as they passed through the generations, if they were not forgotten entirely. I sought to correct them, remind them. Yet in every face, I began to see only the specter of mortal death coming to claim its next victim. As always, I remembered every lost friend and the pain that came with their passing with a keenness as sharp as any blade.

"In the end, I did the only thing that I could. I retreated from the world, returning to the lands of ice and snow that held the only small comforts left to me. No longer did I hunt, for I had seen enough death to last a thousand eternities. I remained here by myself, with only the animals of this arctic wilderness for company. And ever I dreamed that a day might arrive when I would finally be allowed to forget..."

Her voice trailed off, and it seemed to take the voices of Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, Olaf, and Rohl with it. The companions all stood mutely, alternately looking at the Snow Queen then at each other, unsure what they could possibly say in the face of a misery beyond what any other living creature on the planet had ever known.

Speech found Anna first, and she took a tentative step forward. "Skadi?" she said. The Snow Queen's cheek twitched almost imperceptibly at the sound of her ancient name. "I… I can't possibly understand everything you've been through, but… Well, I do know what it's like to have my memories taken away. Are you sure that's really what you want?" The immortal did not answer, at least not in words. She merely turned her head away.

"When you took away my memories of my parents, you said that you did it to spare me the heartache of having lost them. But you know what? It didn't! Because I still knew that I must have had parents. I just knew nothing about them, and I think that was even worse. True, I didn't remember the pain of grieving for them, but I didn't remember their laughter either. I didn't remember their faces or their kindness. I didn't remember Mother's gentle wisdom or the special smile Papa would get when we were alone and he could just be himself instead of having to be king. All of that was gone, and what was left was just… hollow. Empty. I still felt like I'd lost something, only now I had no idea what it was that I'd lost!"

The Snow Queen's silence continued, but it was not enough to deter Anna. "Look, you said that you remember everything, right? Well, doesn't that mean you remember the good times, too? And even though you remember it all, you can't possibly remember it all at once. You still have a choice, don't you? You get to decide what memories you want to revisit. You get to choose whether to dwell on the worst of them or the best. You've lived so many lifetimes. Surely there's also been good along the way. Hasn't there?"

"I brought you here," said the Snow Queen darkly, "that your sister might follow. I did not desire your opinion on the choices I had made, nor do I now. You have served the only purpose I had for you, and the small role I needed you to play is over. Elsa will stay to perform the work for which her gifts were intended. With so many centuries behind me that must be sifted through, she will be kept quite busy for many, many years. In return, I shall become her teacher, helping to refine her control over both ice and snow. She has learned a great deal on her own, yet there is so much more she could accomplish with only a little guidance.

"You, on the other hand, are no longer necessary and would do well to obey your sister's wishes. Return to Arendelle. Live your life free of fear, for I shall not trouble you again so long as you return the favor in kind. Should you try to reclaim your sister by force, however, I will spare little mercy. Know that I have shown you but a fraction of my power. No might of men can best me here in my stronghold. Waste neither my time nor their lives with such an attempt."

"I'm not going anywhere without Elsa!" Anna proclaimed defiantly.

The Snow Queen offered an indifferent shrug. "Then stay. There is no shortage of room in the palace. Know, however, that this land is far from hospitable. Food is scarce during the long winter. Though I eat little myself, I have made preparations to provide for Elsa's needs. I have no desire to be needlessly cruel and I would not see you starve, but meals are likely to be meager compared to what you have grown accustomed.

"I suspect, however, that the cold will be a more pressing matter. Neither I nor your sister are likely to find it a problem, but it will undoubtedly prove difficult for you. Should you choose to stay, I have no doubt you will soon find yourself thoroughly miserable if not deathly ill, and I have little skill at healing. So you need to ask yourself: are you willing to sacrifice your comfort, your happiness, perhaps even your life just to remain by your sister's side?"

Anna jutted her chin out proudly. "I've done it before!"

"Anna, please. Don't." Elsa grabbed her sister's hands and tugged her around so that they stood face to face. "You were ready to give your life to save me once before. It's my turn to do the same for you. You're my family. I love you. All I've ever wanted is for you to be safe and happy, but you will never be either of those things here. Maybe… maybe I can visit now and then. The Sn-… Skadi traveled abroad from time to time. Perhaps she will let me do the same someday. Or we could write. I… I don't suspect there's much in the way of mail service up here, but if she was able to keep a watch on Arendelle for all these years and get a message delivered to her here about what happened on Coronation Day then… Well, I'm sure we can figure something out."

"Elsa, no..."

"Anna, I'm sorry, but I just don't know what else we can do! I can't see any other choice!"

 _Maybe… I do._

Elsa's spine snapped straight as, for only the second time in her waking life, she heard her own voice inside her head speaking words that were not her own.

 _Fare?_

 _I think… Perhaps you should offer to begin your task for the Snow Queen._

 _What? Why? How could that possibly help with anything?_

 _Look, you trusted me before, and together, we were able to bring back Anna's memories. Please. If you can put your faith in me just one more time, I think there's a chance that we might be able to perform a second miracle today. Can you do that? Can you still trust me?_

"Elsa? Elsa, are you alright?"

With a startled jerk, Elsa brought her eyes back into focus and looked down at Anna. "Yes," she said, not completely certain herself which question she was answering. Then, before Anna could say another word, Elsa spun to face the Snow Queen.

"So far," she declared boldly, "all I've proven is that I was able to restore my sister's memories. But you said that your mind is far different from that of mere mortals like ourselves. Before you send my sister away, don't you think it would be prudent to determine for certain whether or not I'm even capable of performing this task that you set for me? After all, if I cannot, then what reason would you even have to keep me here?"

"Elsa," Anna interjected, the fear plain in her voice. "Remember what happened to that troll! It could happen to you, too. Just looking inside her mind could drive you mad!"

"I told you, Anna. We don't seem to have any other choice." Addressing the Snow Queen, she fought down the nervous quaver that was threatening to distort her own words. "Your experiment is not yet over. You still need this one last data point before you will know for certain if it has been a success. And if..." She broke off, swallowed, then continued. "And if my mind is not up to the strain, then I would prefer to be returned to Arendelle, where at least I can be looked after by those I love."

The immortal considered this proposal gravely, while Anna stood beside her sister, biting her lip and clinging tightly to Elsa's arm as if to physically restrain her from taking any action whatsoever. At last, the Snow Queen nodded. "Very well."

"Elsa, don't! Kristoff, help me! We need to stop her. We can't let her do this!"

Elsa reached down and, gently but firmly, pried Anna's fingers from her bicep. Glancing over her sister's shoulder at the ice harvester, she gave him a look that said better than any words could have, "I have to do this. Please, no matter what happens, take care of Anna for me."

Laying his hands upon Anna's narrow shoulders, Kristoff nodded once at Elsa. She knew that, from him, that simple motion constituted the most solemn of vows.

Drawing a deep breath, she turned and marched across the short distance that separated her from Skadi, goddess of winter. Their eyes met, and there was no need even for a nod between them. All that had happened, everything in Elsa's life since before she had even been born, had led her to this moment. Now, there was only one thing left to do. Reaching up, she placed her fingers against the side of the Snow Queen's face, much as she had done to Anna's. Then she closed her eyes.

 _Goodbye, Elsa._

 _Fare?_

Her eyes snapped open as she felt something race down her arms and flow out through her fingertips. The sensation was similar to what she always felt whenever she released her magic, only this was subtly different. For one thing, it left an emptiness behind in a place whose existence Elsa had not even noticed before that moment.

 _Fare?_ she called out again inside her mind. _Fare!_

There was no answer.


	35. Life's Second Chances

The two women staggered apart, reeling for different but not unrelated reasons. Two pairs of hands grabbed and supported Elsa as she momentarily forgot about her body and instead turned inward, groping around within her mind for a presence that she had never even noticed before. Only in its absence did she now become aware of it.

"Easy. We've got you," she heard Kristoff say, though the words registered only in a distant and detached sort of way. Her mind didn't seem to be where it ought to be. It was as though her consciousness was traveling throughout her body in its search for the suddenly missing piece of herself. In this way, she became aware that her legs were not actually supporting her own weight. She felt Kristoff's strong hands gripping her beneath the arms and Anna's smaller ones trying to steady her. She was even dimly aware of what she thought must be Olaf's thin fingers smoothing the folds of her skirts in concern. She also slowly came to realize that her limbs were trembling and that her breath was coming in ragged gasps.

But what stood out most of all was the bright ball of power that nestled within her, exactly where it had always been. Reaching down with her mind, she gently probed it. It responded to her touch as usual, writhing in eager anticipation of being allowed out into the world. Yet this now seemed strangely disconcerting to her. Her magic remained unchanged even though the one who had subtly tutored her in its use for so long was now gone. Somehow, that seemed unspeakably wrong.

 _Fare!_ she called again, still unwilling to believe just yet. _Fare, are you here? Can you hear me? Fare!_

"Elsa? Elsa, are you alright?"

For a moment, a swooping surge of hope lifted her spirits when it seemed that her desperate questions had drawn out an unexpected answer. She turned away from her power and again tried to examine the darkest corners of her own thoughts, seeking the hiding place from which the reply had come. Then additional words impinged upon her mind, and she realized the truth of the matter.

"Elsa? Kristoff, what's wrong with her? Do you think something went… went… Oh, and who is this Fare she keeps calling for? Elsa?"

"I'm okay," she managed in a thin, quavering voice as she dragged herself up from the depths in which she'd temporarily lost herself. Discovering her eyes again, she pried them open. Anna's worried face was, naturally, the first thing that swam into view. Elsa offered her a weak smile, hoping it looked more encouraging than it felt.

"Elsa!" her sister exclaimed. "What happened?"

"I don't… I'm not really sure. I just… I mean, I… And then we..." Elsa frowned, then shook her head in frustration. "I don't know," she admitted. "It was all so strange and so sudden, and then..." Her eyes widened and, as strength returned to her limbs, she grabbed hold of Anna's shoulder and pulled herself forward. Concern still etched upon her face, Anna turned and slipped an arm around her sister to help support her. Elsa's attention, however, was elsewhere. Her eyes were focused with singular intensity upon the other pale, blond woman in the room.

When she'd stumbled away from Elsa, the Snow Queen had backed straight into her throne. Not having anyone to help keep her upright, she had slumped weakly down onto it. She was still sitting there now, her head bowed and clasped tightly between her hands. The curtain of her long, flaxen hair had swung forward so that her face was hidden from view. For most of the onlookers, this was the first time they had seen her in anything less than full control of herself and her situation. Anna, though, had caught a brief glimpse behind that icy armor. She remembered quite clearly the Snow Queen's panic when she had discovered that it had not been Elsa who had altered Anna's memories. Perhaps that was why she was once again the first one to speak.

"Do you think she's okay, too?"

"We can hope not," said Rohl moodily, finally feeling he had something to contribute to a conversation that had been largely over his head. "I say we make a break for it while we have the chance."

"I'm with Rohl," Kristoff agreed. Placing one hand on Elsa's shoulder and the other on Anna's, he began to tug on both of them "Let's get out of here."

"No!"

The Snow Queen raised one hand. A deep grinding noise came from behind them, and they turned to see the door through which they had entered shrinking before their very eyes. In the space of a breath, snow had filled the opening so that it was now indistinguishable from the rest of the wall that had surrounded it. One by one, all the other exits from the enormous chamber disappeared in like fashion.

"Well, so much for that idea," Rohl grumbled. "What do we do now?"

"Are you feeling alright, Grandma Skadi?"

Their heads all whipped around at the sound of Olaf's concerned voice. The little snowman was standing by the foot of the throne, one hand resting almost tenderly upon the Snow Queen's knee.

"Olaf!" Elsa hissed. "What are you doing?" He did not respond, but simply continued to look up at the bent woman, waiting patiently for his own question to be answered. And the answer finally came in a most unexpected form.

The Snow Queen's hand moved to pat the top of Olaf's head, taking care not to snap the twigs that poked up from his crown. She lifted her head slowly and, as her hair slid back, two unusual things caught their attention. First, the strange wintry light that seemed to suffuse the room now glinted off her tear-streaked cheeks. And second, she was smiling.

The smile was unlike any they had seen on that face before. It was not the eager, covetous grin she had displayed in the palace courtyard while demanding that Elsa demonstrate her magic. Nor was it the smug, condescending smirk that seemed to come to her lips so easily. Indeed, this was almost beatific. It was the smile of one who, though long ago having resigned herself to the endlessness of her suffering, suddenly and unexpectedly found it at an end. The hard lines that had characterized her face, that had left it looking as though it had been chiseled from a solid block of ice, were now thawed and softened by that smile. The regal stiffness that had suffused her posture was gone… and in her eyes shone peace.

"Elsa, what did you do?" Anna breathed in amazement, glancing sidelong at her sister.

"It… it wasn't me," Elsa replied, shaking her head numbly. "It was Fare!"

"Fare? Who is this Fare?"

"A piece of me," answered the Snow Queen, her voice almost rapturous with disbelief. "A tiny bit of my being that passed into Elsa when she was still in the womb. A seed that took root and grew into… into… I am not even sure. What would you call her?" she asked, regarding Elsa with open curiosity.

Elsa stared back, dazed by the fact that she would be presented with such a question. "She's… Fare," she replied lamely.

"Fare." The Snow Queen considered the moniker. "I must say, she chose a rather unusual name for herself."

"No, I gave her that name."

The Snow Queen blinked in surprise. "Danger? That is what you chose to call my gift to you?"

"O-o-okay. Well, I'm completely confused." Anna glanced again at Elsa, then turned to Kristoff. "Are you understanding any of this?"

Looking abashed, Kristoff rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand and tried to meet Anna's gaze while simultaneously avoiding her eyes. Predictably, this did not work too well. "Erm, sort of. I mean, at least the parts about Elsa having a part of the Snow Queen inside her head. You know. Fare."

"No, I don't know Fare!" she shot back. "How do you?"

As his chagrin deepened even further, the redness in his cheeks followed suit. He shrugged. "It… was a long trip."

"So let me get this straight. You," she said, pointing at Elsa, "had a piece of her," and her finger jabbed toward the Snow Queen, "inside your head. For, like, ever?"

"To be fair," Elsa replied defensively, "I didn't know what Fare was until after you'd been taken. She only ever appeared to me in dreams, and I was never sure that she was ever anything more than that. After all, all sorts of strange things can happen in dreams. I thought that she was just another part of me. Sometimes, she acted like my guilty conscience. Sometimes, she was the spur that goaded me into doing things I would have been too frightened to try otherwise. And yes, sometimes she helped me to understand my magic a little better. I wasn't sure if I could trust her, at least not at first. Even if she had been just a part of me, I barely trusted myself back then. Over time, though… Well… she changed. So did I, I suppose. And it was only with her help that I was able to bring back your memories! I owe her a great deal. We all do. She is… was… my friend."

"Was? Wait, so is that what happened just now? This… this Fare left your head and went into – I mean, back into – hers?"

Elsa nodded weakly. "I think so."

Now Anna rounded on the Snow Queen. "And she gave you what you wanted? Just like that? She took away your memories?"

The Snow Queen shook her head, a curious look of introspection upon her features. "No. At least, not exactly. I think she could have, had she chosen to, but she did not. Yet what she did was enough. I still remember my friends, my family, and my fellows. Nor has the pain of their passing disappeared entirely. However, though the memories remain, the bitter flavor that accompanied them has been dulled. It has lessened enough that I can again taste the sweetness of happier times." Her smile widened. "You were right, child. Not all of my past deserved to be forgotten."

"But you said that you couldn't perform memory magic on yourself. If… if Fare is just a part of you, then..."

"Was," the Snow Queen corrected. "She was a part of me. As she was a part of Elsa. She is neither now. Or rather, she is both. And she is herself. She is… more than the sum of her parts. Certainly, she is far more than she was when I left her behind."

"But I thought you only gave Elsa her magic?"

Conditioned by past experience, Anna expected her question to be met with a bitter glare and impatient scorn. What she did not expect was the bright laughter that it engendered instead. Like the smile that had come before, it held an undiluted joy that she would not have believed the Snow Queen capable of.

"Of course not, my dear. One cannot give magic, for one cannot possess magic. I had sought merely to impart unto your sister the knowledge of how to harness and channel such power. Little did I realize that, instead of simply giving her that knowledge, I actually provided her with a teacher instead." She chuckled again at her distant miscalculation. "As I said, it was an experiment."

Now it was Elsa's turn to look confused. "Wait, I don't understand. What do you mean, you can't possess magic? But I feel it inside me." She tapped her chest, right at the base of her sternum. "It's in here. Whenever I do my magic, I just..." She lifted her hand and a puff of snowflakes shot upward from her fingertips. "…let it out."

The warmth in the Snow Queen's smile continued to seem so out of place, it was almost disturbing. "Ah. Then it would seem that Fare's understanding of the workings of magic was not entirely complete after all." She rose from her throne and took a step forward. As one, all of the companions (save Olaf) took a matching step backward, seeking to maintain the distance between the two groups.

The Snow Queen – they all were still finding it difficult to think of her by her ancient name – continued to smile. What appeared to be understanding glinted in her eyes as she folded her hands demurely before her. "Of course," she said, not unkindly. "Pardon my presumption. I really have given you no reason to trust me, have I?" She then tilted her head to one side and considered Elsa closely.

"You have struggled to control your abilities, have you not? Your sister indicated as much during our journey. There is a reason, you know, and a very simple one at that." Lifting a finger, she pointed toward the spot that Elsa herself had indicated a moment earlier. "That does not belong there."

"Of course it doesn't," Anna shot back on her sister's behalf. "It's only there because you put it there."

"No, that is not what I meant. Magic is a force of nature. It is not meant to be contained. Oh, you can if you try hard enough. Just as a dam may hold back a river, so too can the flow of magic be blocked. In both cases, however, you can only withhold so much for so long. If there is no release for the pressure, then it is only a matter of time before the water overflows or the dam bursts asunder.

"You came to fear what you were capable of, Elsa. It is why you gave Fare her name. And so, you sought to contain the magic. You spent most of your life trying to seal it away inside yourself, afraid of what might happen if it ever slipped out again. What you failed to realize was that, in doing so, you guaranteed that when the inevitable slip happened, it would be far, far worse than you had ever imagined. You choked the river and thus birthed the flood."

The Snow Queen's expression held so much sympathy and compassion, it was nearly maternal. "You need not hold it in any longer, Elsa. Do not fear the wild waters. They know where they need to go. Let them pass. When you need them, they will be there. They will carry you upon their bosom. You will travel together. Their strength will lift you. Their swift current will guide you. Now and then, you may dip an oar into the stream, shift the tiller, or perhaps trim the sails. But the trick, you see, is not to try to change the flow itself, for as every seaman knows, it will not be tamed. Any attempt to do so is folly. You must control that which you can and nothing more. You need only learn to steer yourself." She held out an open hand, its fingers extended directly toward the center of Elsa's chest.

"Let it go, Elsa."

Elsa gaped openly as the import of these words made themselves felt upon her soul. The hand with which she had pointed to the reservoir of her power now spread out across it. Was it a gesture of protection, a sign that she still remained unwilling to believe anything that the Snow Queen said to her? Or was it akin to reflexively clutching at a sudden pain, an admission that the power within her chest was a malignancy that needed to be removed? Even she was not sure, and she found herself swinging wildly back and forth between the two extremes.

"I don't trust her." Rohl snorted, making it abundantly clear which side of the debate he favored. "I think she'd say or do anything to get what she wants. How do we know that she isn't just looking to drain your power so that you won't be able to fight her again, hmm?"

"Well, it all makes sense to me," Olaf countered. "I mean, Elsa was already trying to change the way she worked her magic. Isn't that right, Elsa? You said you needed to trust it more and not try so hard to make it obey you. But that sounds just like what Grandma Skadi is saying. Maybe she's right. Maybe she's just trying to help."

"Oh yeah, she's been loads of help so far," scoffed the troll. "Kidnapping a princess. Attacking us with snow soldiers. Trapping us in here. If she helps us much more, we might not live to thank her!"

"But she already got what she wanted! Her memories are better now. So what good would it do for her to hurt any of us?"

"Don't ask me. I don't pretend to know how a god's mind works!"

Realizing he was getting nowhere with Rohl, Olaf looked elsewhere for support. "Kristoff, you agree with me, right?"

"Me?" Kristoff clearly had not been expecting anyone to ask his opinion. "I, um… I don't know. I mean, you'd know more about magic than I would, Olaf, since you're sort of made from the stuff. But on the other hand..." And with said other hand, he gingerly touched the ugly bruise surrounding his right eye, wincing as he did so. "Well, if she wanted to earn our trust, she's got an odd way of going about it."

Olaf looked positively stricken at the lack of support he was finding among his friends. "Anna?" he asked, uncertainty causing his voice to climb in pitch. He turned wide eyes toward her, hoping against hope to find at least one other person who shared his point of view.

Anna returned his gaze for a long moment. Then she stared at the Snow Queen. Of them all, she had spent the most time with the woman. She'd felt her presence inside her own head. By those cold hands, she'd nearly lost everything that she had ever been. In every respect, she had the most reason to hate and distrust Skadi. And yet…

Well, perhaps it was just Anna's own nature. She'd always had a tendency to look for the best in others. She knew perfectly well that many considered such an outlook to be hopelessly naive, and that some considered her little better than a fool who only ever saw the things she wanted to see. Even so, she had long ago decided that she'd rather be a fool than go through life becoming ever more jaded and cynical. Her sometimes reckless optimism had seen her through thirteen years of loneliness and tragedy. She saw no reason why she should abandon it now.

Besides, she knew all too well what it was like to be left friendless and alone. The Snow Queen was not the only one who had lost loved ones. She vividly remembered the dark depression that had gripped her after her parents had been lost at sea. For a long while, she had been so miserable and inconsolable that she had thought she would never feel happiness again. What would have become of her if she had lost not just her mother and father but everyone she had ever known? Elsa. Kai and Gerda. Josef, Fritz, and Marie. If she had truly been left with no one, if there had been none who cared enough to support her or to help her through that terrible time, what might she have become?

And there it was. Despite everything, despite all that this woman had done to her and to those she loved, the truth was inescapable. Anna felt sorry for the Snow Queen. She pitied the ageless Skadi for all the lonely millennia she'd been forced to endure here in this frozen wilderness. Pain had caused her to retreat from the world – pain and the fear of being hurt again. In that way, she was also like Elsa, except that no one had been waiting for her on the other side of the door.

Anna turned then to her sister. "It really has to be up to you, Elsa. It's your magic. It's your life. But if you want my opinion…" She broke off, biting her lip nervously. Even now, she felt amazed at herself for what she was about to say, and more than a little worried how the others would react to her conclusions. But she had made up her mind, and she firmly believed that Elsa deserved to hear all sides before she made her decision. Steeling herself with a deep breath, she forged bravely onward.

"I think we should trust her."

"Wait, what?" Kristoff and Rohl exclaimed together. Elsa stared back at her, surprise written plainly enough across her face.

"Anna, are you sure?"

"No," she answered with a shrug, "but when did I ever let that stop me? Look, I know how crazy it sounds. After everything she's done, we have absolutely no sensible reason to believe her now. But even so, I want to trust her. Elsa, when you consider all that she's been through… Well, it'd be enough to make anybody a little angry."

"A little angry?" Rohl barked incredulously. Anna shot him a repressive glare, but when she turned away, she did not look back at her sister. Instead, her gaze moved to the Snow Queen, who she considered for several silent seconds.

"The entire time we traveled together," she said at last, "you only lied to me once that I can remember."

"I am afraid you are mistaken. I never lied to you."

"You said that you would restore my memories."

"No. You only asked me if I _could_ restore them, to which I replied – truthfully enough – that I could. That was not a lie. It was a poorly worded question."

Anna frowned at this awkward answer, at least until Olaf chimed in with, "She's right, you know? That was what we asked."

"Alright, fine. So you dodged my questions, you answered in riddles, and you took advantage of little loopholes like that one. But you never actually lied to me. So here's your chance to prove that you are as true to your word as you claim to be. None of your games this time, just straight answers. Are you telling the truth about the magic inside of Elsa?"

"Yes," the Snow Queen answered solemnly.

"If she releases that magic, like you suggest, will it hurt her or cause her injury in any way?"

"No."

"Will it have any effect on her ability to control ice and snow?"

"Of course. It should make both far easier for her."

"And why are you explaining this to her now?"

"Because I do not believe in telling lies. I said before that I would become her teacher. I said that I would help her learn to improve her control and to grow even stronger than she already is. This is the first step down that road. If she chooses not to take it, then she will never be able to realize her full potential."

"And afterward? Regardless of what Elsa decides, what happens to her then? And what are your plans for the rest of us now?"

"You and your friends are free to leave," the Snow Queen answered. "I closed the doors only for fear that you might flee without giving me this chance to speak with you. If I taught Elsa nothing, then you would have made a liar out of me, and I did not wish that to be." With an airy wave of her hand, the chamber opened again, every exit returning to exactly the same spot it had occupied before. "As for Elsa… Well, that is another decision that she must make."

"My decision?" Elsa blurted out in surprise. "I have a choice? But you said..."

"That it would take you a great many years to sort through centuries of memories and remove those I no longer desired. However, circumstances are not now what they were then, and the role for which I brought you here has been filled by another."

"Fare? So she bought my freedom by sacrificing her own?"

"That was her choice. But truly, what freedom did she have to lose? She existed only within your mind and memories. I am certain they had their charms, but she was not exactly free. Like both you and your sister, Fare grew up within walls that she thought she would never escape. You spent most of your childhood closeted in your room. How varied a mental landscape do you think that gave her? Doubtless, your dreams and imagination expanded her horizons to a point, yet she was still dependent on you for all her experiences."

"And now she has to rely on you instead. I don't see what's changed."

"Do you not? My dear, I have lived for thousands of years. I have traveled to every corner of this world and to others beyond. I have seen more than the sum of humanity put together. That – all of it – is now Fare's to explore. The lush fertility of Asgard. The mighty mountains of Jotunheim. The primordial ice of Niflheim and the raging fires of Muspell. She has access to vistas of which no mortal could possibly conceive. And if she is still surrounded by walls, they are like to the heavens. What bother are such walls if they can never possibly be reached?"

"So Fare is… She's… happy?"

"I would like to think so," said the Snow Queen, "though I cannot hear her voice. Not yet, at least. We have been estranged for too long. I suspect it will take time before we can learn to communicate like she did with you. Still, I am able to sense something of her presence. It feels mostly like curiosity, though there is a certain amount of anxiety as well. After all, it is never easy leaving home for the first time. I think perhaps there might also be just a touch of loneliness, or possibly regret." She appeared to consider these last emotions for a beat before finally finishing her thought.

"I believe she wishes she had been given more time to say goodbye."

Elsa felt an unexpected lump lodge itself in her throat, and she wasn't at all sure that she'd be able speak around it. But then, she could not think of any words that would do justice to her emotions at that moment anyway.

"But, as we were saying," the Snow Queen continued, "you have two choices that you must make, Elsa. First, you will have to decide whether you trust me enough to follow my advice and release your grip on the magic inside you. Secondly, I have taken your tutor from you. Will you let me continue to uphold my promise and instruct you instead? There is so much I can teach you, so many things you could do with just a little guidance."

Elsa's head was swimming. Things were moving so quickly. In the space of a few short minutes, she had gone from having no choice at all to suddenly being forced to make two critical decisions, either one of which could change her life forever. Swallowing with difficulty, she managed to stammer, "I… I don't know."

That was when she felt fingers entwining with her own. Looking down, she saw Anna's hand clasping hers, giving it a reassuring squeeze. She met her sister's eyes and saw there the steadfast reassurance that, no matter what decisions she made, she would be guaranteed the wholehearted support of at least one person who loved her.

"It's just so much," she whispered.

"Well," replied Anna thoughtfully, "why don't you just focus on the first question first? After all, if you can't trust her even that far, then I can't imagine letting her teach you anything else."

Elsa nodded slowly. It made perfect sense. She just wasn't entirely sure that it made things any easier. It still came down to a question of trust, and that was what she was struggling with the most. She had listened to all her friends' arguments, and she had agreed with them all too. No matter how she turned the problem over in her mind, regardless of what perspective she tried to employ, she simply could not find clarity over that one fundamental doubt. Did she dare trust the Snow Queen?

"And I'm not sure," Anna said as if reading her sister's mind, "that you can think your way through this one. You might spin around in circles for days without getting any closer to knowing what you ought to do. So maybe you should just trust your instincts. I know you didn't always have faith in yourself when we were growing up, but you aren't that same person anymore. You're Elsa, Queen of Arendelle. You've prepared your entire life to make all the big, important decisions that our people need from you. Well, you can make this one, too. I just know you can."

Anna smiled winningly at her big sister and, in that instant, Elsa made up her mind. Squaring her shoulders, she turned determinedly to the Snow Queen.

"I'm ready," she announced, "to release my magic." There was a sharp intake of breath from behind her, but Elsa did not look around to see who it was. She had made her decision. All that remained now was to see it through.

The Snow Queen inclined her head, a gratified expression on her face. Then Elsa looked back at Anna. "I really have no idea what's about to happen, so you might not want to be too close to me when I do this. Just to be safe."

"Are you sure? Because if you want me to stay here with you…"

"I know. But I think it would be for the best."

Anna nodded and squeezed Elsa's hand one more time. Then she backed away, grabbing Kristoff and pulling him with her. Sven followed his friends. Rohl, for his part, needed no extra encouragement to beat a hasty retreat.

Elsa took a deep breath, then looked down at her hands. For as long as she could remember, they had been the avenue through which she had released her magic. If she was now about to expel it all, she thought it would be best to try to guide it out through the path with which it was most familiar. Hopefully, that would allow her to maintain some control over it so that she might at least direct the outpouring away from the others. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to get hurt because of her. That was an experience she had no desire to relive. So she carefully raised her arms and, pointing her palms outward, extended them toward the distant wall of the chamber, as far away from anybody else as was possible.

"Right then," she said. "Here it goes." And she relaxed the vice-like grip that she had ever kept upon her magic.

She felt the power expand. It roared upward, straining against the very fabric of her being as it sought the path to freedom. The search lasted only a moment, and then it was racing along her arms in a wild, headlong rush toward the world. It burst out of her hands, a dazzling flow of the brightest blue that rocketed across the chamber and exploded against the wall. Instantly, crazy and confused ice formations sprouted out of nothingness. Geysers of snow fountained off in every direction. The chaos expanded rapidly, piling atop of itself before spilling out to either side, and still the magic continued to flow.

"No!" shouted the Snow Queen in a booming voice that echoed throughout the chamber. It startled Elsa so badly that she nearly made the mistake of drawing back her arms before her instinctive reaction took hold and clamped down on the energies that had been so uncontrollably spilling out of her. Her heart pounding in her chest, she stared at the jumbled mess that she had wrought. In only a scant few seconds, an impenetrable mass of jagged ice had spread around nearly a third of the room's circumference. She again stared down at her hands before looking across at the Snow Queen.

"I..." she began. "I thought I was supposed to…."

"Knock down the dam all at once?" the Snow Queen finished for her, and a little of her old acerbity had crept back into her voice. She must have heard it too, for she quite visibly calmed and collected herself before continuing, "Floodgates are there to prevent a flood, girl, not create one." She frowned pensively as she regarded Elsa in a measuring sort of way.

"I think I might have an idea," she said at last. "If I may?" And with a gesture, she indicated her desire to move closer to Elsa. Though there was an unmistakable hesitancy to it, Elsa nevertheless gave a quick nod. With only a few long strides, the Snow Queen closed the distance between them. Then, placing her hands palm-to-palm, she jabbed the tips of her fingers directly against Elsa's sternum.

"This is where you feel the magic, correct?" Again, Elsa nodded. "Well then, here is what you are going to do. First, close your eyes. Close them! Good. Now draw a deep breath in and, as you do, imagine this knot of magic spreading outward. I want you to feel it filling your lungs like the very air itself."

As Elsa inhaled, Skadi's hands moved. They slid down beneath the curve of the younger woman's breasts, moving out to either side as they traced the path that the magic was to follow. "Yes, like that, but do not breathe out just yet. Hold it as long as you can. You need to give that tight little ball a chance to stretch a little. Let the knot loosen. Allow its light to seep into every corner."

Then she waited – waited until she felt Elsa begin to tremble slightly beneath her fingertips with the prolonged effort to hold her breath. "Now you may exhale. And as the air flows out of your body, let the magic leave with it." Her hands curved back inward again until they met at the centerline of Elsa's body. Then they slid upward, stopping just below the base of her throat.

Elsa's mouth opened slightly and something emerged from between her parted lips. It was akin to the fog of a warm breath on a cold day, except there was a strange sparkle that flickered within the pale mist. Nor did it disappear quite so quickly. Instead, it drifted lazily up toward the ceiling, spreading out and thinning as it went until it was lost against the icy shimmer of the roof above their heads.

"It's still there," said Elsa, her voice confused and a little bit worried. "I can still feel it, exactly where it's always been." One hand rose to touch the spot on her chest.

"Again," the Snow Queen directed. "Breathe in. Hold it. Let the magic find its place alongside the air. Good. Now let both out." As before, her hands moved to directly reinforce each instruction. Another cloud of glittering mist rose into the air. "And again," came the Snow Queen's order, this time before Elsa had a chance to voice another protest.

Over and over, this odd meditation repeated itself. Soon, no spoken instructions were required, though the Snow Queen's hands continued their graceful movements. Elsa's brows knotted as she focused on the steady rhythm and on guiding the energies within her. Never before had the simple act of breathing required so much of her concentration.

Then without warning, an exhale became a startled gasp as Elsa's eyes flew open. "It's gone!" she exclaimed, anxious disbelief apparent in her tone as well as on her face. Her hand groped at the place where the power had rested for so long, as if her fingers might find some lingering trace that her inner senses could not. "It's… really gone?"

Anna wasted no time in returning to her sister's side, and she grabbed Elsa's arm just to let her feel that she was not alone. "I'm still here, Elsa," she said reassuringly. "Are you okay? How do you feel?"

Elsa didn't answer immediately. Instead, she lifted her free arm until her hand hovered directly in front of her eyes. For a brief time, she simply stared at it, turning it this way and that as though she was only now seeing it for the first time. Very slowly, she began to curl all five fingers inward, stopping well short of forming a fist. Rather, it looked as though she was grasping an invisible something in the palm of her hand. And though none could see it, all eyes in the immense throne room were nevertheless focused upon it.

With one sharp motion, Elsa snapped her fingers straight. There was the briefest of flashes that caused most who were watching to blink involuntarily. But when their eyes opened again, they all beheld a spectacular sight. There, revolving slowly in midair above Elsa's palm, was a single enormous snowflake, nearly as tall as her head. Its ice was as flawless as glass and, as it spun, it almost seemed to glow with a pulsing inner light.

 _Or maybe,_ thought Anna as she pulled her eyes away from the crystal, _it's simply reflecting the glow from Elsa's face._

A radiant smile had transformed her sister's features. All the anxiety, concentration, and doubt that had played across them so recently had vanished without a trace. In their place was a look of exultant release. Anna could not remember the last time she had seen Elsa looking so completely untroubled, except maybe way back when they had both been little girls playing together throughout every room, passage, and concourse of the castle.

"Elsa?" she prodded delicately.

"It's like I've been holding my breath my entire life," Elsa said, her voice full of amazed wonder, "and now, for the first time ever, I'm able to breathe." Then she laughed, and it was not her usual reserved and barely audible chuckle. It was bright and beautiful, a shimmering cascade of joy. With a flourish, she tossed the giant snowflake up into the air. Halfway to the ceiling, it reached the top of its arc but failed to come crashing back down. Instead, it simply hung there, its glittering facets flashing as it continued its slow spin.

Elsa laughed again as she gazed up at her creation. Then she lowered her eyes and turned her smile upon Anna. The next thing the freckle-faced princess knew, she was wrapped up in her sister's enthusiastic embrace and Elsa was speaking contentedly into her ear.

"I can barely believe it, Anna. It's just… it's incredible. I don't know how to describe it. I thought I would feel empty, but I don't. I almost feel like a little girl again. Like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I feel so light, I think I could almost fly!

"Anna," she whispered in a voice that no one else could hear, "I finally feel free."

Anna squeezed back with all her might, her heart nearly bursting with joy for her sister. "I'm so happy for you," she said. "I only wish we could have learned all of this sooner."

"So," said a voice that was not Elsa's, "have I earned some small bit of trust now?"

The sisters pulled apart and turned their faces toward the Snow Queen. She had moved off a few steps when Anna had swept in. Now she stood alone, her hands clasped loosely before her as she patiently awaited her answer. After a brief hesitation, Elsa nodded. "Yes, I suppose you have."

"Well, that is good to know, at least." A not-quite-ironic twist lifted one corner of Skadi's mouth. "I am also pleased that you appear to be satisfied with the outcome of your first decision. Are you now ready to make another?"

Anna looked back at Elsa again just in time to see the last of her smile fade from view. Immediately, she wanted to lash out at the Snow Queen. The growing gratitude that she'd been feeling toward the woman evaporated as quickly as had the signs of her sister's new happiness. Couldn't she have let Elsa savor the joy for at least a minute or two before cutting it off at the knees?

Now, Anna watched indecision creep back onto Elsa's face. She could well imagine what had to be going through her head just then. The Snow Queen had been true to her word. Without her help and guidance, Elsa would likely never have enjoyed that rapturous sense of freedom she had just experienced. If Skadi was able to effect such dramatic change so quickly, what greater wisdom might she yet be able to offer given the fullness of time? How many other euphorias of revelation awaited Elsa if only she allowed herself to become student to such a teacher?

At the same time, Elsa had lived her entire life as a creature of responsibility. It was as least as much a part of her as was her magic. She had always been the cautious one when a young Anna had been too busy seeking out new adventures to consider their consequences. Her sense of accountability for their accident that fateful night had sent her into hiding, determined to protect anyone and everyone else from what she might do. Yet despite her fears, she had still prepared for and ultimately taken on the burden of the crown because she had known it was her duty to her people.

Like their father before, however, Elsa did not find the throne to be a terribly comfortable seat. Twice now, she had allowed fear to drive her from it: fear of the kingdom's reaction when her powers had been revealed, fear for her sister when the Snow Queen had taken her hostage. Was that the only thing strong enough to overcome her sense of obligation to the people of Arendelle, or did there exist sweeter temptations that might lure her away? Was the sheer bliss she had just felt enough to convince her to set down the orb and scepter? Was it enough that she would choose to walk away from Anna and the small handful of others who had come to care for her like family?

Not so long ago, Anna wouldn't have spent even a second wondering about the answers to these questions. Then she had seen the look on Elsa's face when the last of her pent-up magic had been released. And now she watched her sister struggling to sort through her emotions and the manifold ramifications of whatever choice she might make – all while determinedly looking anywhere but at Anna. It was obvious that what once would have been a simple answer had now become considerably more complicated.

"Elsa," she began, and she tried her best to impart all the love and support she had to give into her voice. "Elsa, look. I know this is big..."

"Yeah, why is that anyway?"

All heads turned toward Olaf.

He had climbed up onto the vacated throne and sat there now, his short legs sticking out over the edge of the seat. They were swinging idly up and down as he looked about the vast open space. "And it's not just this room, either," he went on, oblivious to the strange looks he was receiving from every direction. "This whole place is huge. But when we were walking through it, every room we passed was empty! I mean sure, I get that you need your space, but do you really need such a big house to hold it all?"

"Okay, I take it back," Rohl grumbled from somewhere near Kristoff's shins. "You just might be smarter than the snowman after all."

The Snow Queen stared perplexedly at Olaf. "I have lived here a very long time," she finally said, "and frankly, there are not a great many diversions in this part of the world. So from time to time – to help relieve the boredom, I suppose – I would add rooms to my palace. If nothing else, they provided a bit of fresh scenery in which I could spend my days. Of course, I could have just remade the rooms that I already had, but why bother? The neighbors never complained," she added with a smirk.

"Besides, had any of them gotten it into their heads to try and seek me out, I saw no reason to make it easy for them. The chances of anyone finding me in this place if I did not wish them to are vanishingly small. It was better for all this way. I had my peace, and anyone foolish enough to trespass had ample time to think better of it before they actually found what they came looking for."

"Yeah, but didn't you get lonely all by yourself in this big palace?" asked Olaf.

"Being alone is not the same as being lonely," she replied. "Besides, I had my animal… friends, as you called them. It was not so bad as all that."

Olaf's face drooped sadly. "I think I would've gotten lonely. I would have missed my friends. Just like I will if Elsa stays here."

"You would be welcome to stay as well," the Snow Queen offered.

"Then I'd miss Anna and Kristoff and Sven. But if I went back with them, I'd miss Elsa. And I think I'd miss you too, Grandma Skadi." His expression became gloomier still. "Families ought to stay together. That way, nobody has to miss anybody else." He heaved a heavy sigh.

"This would all be so much easier if you just lived a little closer to Arendelle."

In the stunned silence that followed, everyone seemed to be trying to look at everyone else. More than one mouth hung open with shock.

"Well, it's a thought," said Kristoff uncertainly.

"Wait," Rohl began. "You can't be seriously considering..."

"We… do have an ice palace that nobody's making much use of at the moment," Anna pointed out. "It might be a bit small compared to what she's used to, but if she still wants her privacy, not many people would bother her up on the North Mountain. Plus, it does come complete with its own resident bodyguard."

"But I… we… we couldn't ask her to do that," Elsa stammered. "Could we?"

"Of course we can," said Anna, obviously beginning to warm to the idea. "She might say no, but we can still ask."

Elsa stared at her sister in disbelief. She looked at Kristoff, who gave a noncommittal shrug. When she turned to Olaf, she saw that he had perked up, his wide eyes darting between his friends as he began to realize that his offhanded comment was actually being taken seriously. Finally, she looked at the Snow Queen, in whose face she saw a mixture of surprise and serious deliberation.

"I don't know what to do," Elsa admitted honestly. "What you just did for me was absolutely amazing. I can't even begin to find the words to thank you properly, and a part of me does long to learn everything else that you could show me. With your help, I might never have to fear what I can do again.

"But I already spent my time in solitude, not because I wanted to but because I thought I had no other choice. I've only just learned that I was wrong. I just got my sister back, and I've made so many other wonderful friends as well. I don't want to lose them again. After all that we've been through together, I'm not sure I could go back to being alone now. I need them, and they need me. Arendelle needs us, too.

"Most of my life, I've felt like I had to sacrifice one thing to gain another. My freedom for Anna's safety. My peace of mind for the kingdom's well-being. It seemed like I was going to have to make the same sort of choice yet again. But maybe this time, there's a chance for something different. Maybe, just this once, I could have it all… if you would be willing.

"I feel like I have no right to ask this of you," she continued, and she caught herself wringing her hands together as she was wont to do when she was exceptionally nervous. Willing her fingers to be still, she forced herself to look Skadi straight in the eyes. "But would you consider coming back with us to Arendelle?"

The Snow Queen returned her gaze steadily. "Are you certain that is wise?" she asked. "I was not exactly a gracious guest the last time I visited your kingdom. Your people might not appreciate my return as much as you would."

Elsa offered a small but genuine smile. "They accepted me, didn't they, and I froze the entire kingdom in the middle of July. At least this time, they wouldn't have been so shocked by the very idea of magic suddenly appearing in their midst. I'm sure there will be some few who will be harder to convince than others, but I do believe they'll all come around in time."

The frown on the Snow Queen's face suggested that she did not share Elsa's certainty of such an outcome. Still, she did not reject the idea outright, and her eyes moved to focus on Anna. "I used you most grievously," she said. "After all that I put you through, I expected neither your forgiveness nor your understanding. Yet by extending me this offer, you appear to be giving me both. May I ask why?"

Anna thought about this for a moment before she answered. "Because you did nothing to me that you knew couldn't be undone. Because I know what it's like to lose the ones you loved most in this world. And because life gave me a second chance at a family even when I thought I had lost mine forever. I suppose I'd like to think that it might be willing to do the same for you."

To this, the Snow Queen had no reply, though she stared at Anna for a considerable span of time before turning to Olaf. "And you, little one," she said kindly. "You alone were never afraid of me. You accepted me even when you barely knew anything about me. What inspired you to show me such kindness?"

Olaf blinked up at her as though surprised that she even needed to ask. "If it hadn't been for you," he said simply, "I wouldn't even exist. I never would have met my friends. I never would have had a chance to see summer. I wouldn't have gotten to do anything, and that wouldn't have been very much fun. Once I realized all that, I figured you really couldn't be all bad."

The snowman's simple logic brought a smile to her face. She gave him a small but gracious bow, then looked to Kristoff. But before she could speak, the ice harvester held up his hands to forestall her. "Don't look at me," he said. "I just want whatever makes Anna happy, which is usually whatever makes Elsa happy, so it all tends to work out well for everybody. If this is what they both want, then it's fine by me." With his next words, however, his expression grew serious.

"But if you do anything to hurt either of them ever again, you and I _will_ have a problem."

The Snow Queen raised an eyebrow and her smile quickly faded, leaving her face every bit as grave as Kristoff's. They stared at each other for a tense moment. Then she inclined her head in somber acknowledgment of his words. "As it should be," she agreed. And with that, she turned back to Elsa.

"You realize, do you not, that my presence in your kingdom may have repercussions beyond your own borders? Even if your people accept me, other lands may not be as comfortable with the thought of two women in the same kingdom with the powers that you and I share. It may lead to fear, distrust, conflict. Are you prepared to deal with such an eventuality? Are you willing to risk so much just for the sake of having me nearby?"

Elsa glanced sideways at Anna. She swept her gaze around the room, taking in Sven, Kristoff, Olaf, and Rohl. Then her lips quirked upward as her eyes returned to settle on the Snow Queen's face.

"If we aren't willing to take a risk for family," she said, "what else is there?"

The muscles in Skadi's jaw tightened, her expression unreadable. She pulled her gaze away from Elsa's to similarly look around the chamber, though her eyes lingered not upon the people but on the walls themselves. Somehow, she gave the impression that she was seeing not just this one room but beyond it to the many others that filled her tremendous fortress, remembering each and every one and the lifetimes she had spent within them all.

At last, she lowered her head. And though she met no one's eyes, the words she spoke were clearly directed at Elsa.

"Very well. If you are sure that this is what you want, then I will return with you to Arendelle."

Olaf bounded to his feet and started doing an energetic dance upon the throne born from sheer excitement. While the reactions from the rest of the party were considerably more subdued, Elsa did grace the Snow Queen with a broad and welcoming smile. Beside her, Anna wrapped her hands around Elsa's arm and leaned her head against her sister's shoulder. She smiled too, though hers took in all there assembled. Then she sighed.

"I think," she said with weary contentment, "it's finally time that we all went home."

 **A/N: You've undoubtedly noticed that I've struggled to get the last few chapters out at my usual pace. This has been due, in large part, to just how complicated and critical they all have been. However, I've also found myself once again fighting with motivation and burnout. So, having finally pushed through to the resolution of the Snow Queen arc, I think I'm going to take a bit of time off before I knock out the remaining chapters.**

 **In the end, I believe the break will probably benefit the story anyway. I've been so focused on getting this far that I haven't planned out the ultimate conclusion quite as well as I'd have liked. A vacation should give my brain time to work through those final niggling details. With luck, that will make the finished product all the better.**

 **As always, I thank you all for your continued support of this ridiculously long and rambling saga. I hope that, once completed, it will have been worth the wait.**


	36. A Time for Goodbyes

"What happened to the sled?"

A small grunt issued from Kristoff as he heaved an ice chest – quite literally a large box that had been constructed entirely out of ice – over the sledge's sideboard and deposited it heavily onto the bed. The Snow Queen had set aside provisions in anticipation of Elsa's prolonged stay, and a healthy portion of those reserves would now serve to feed them on their long southerly journey. He took a step back and, rolling his shoulders to try to work out some of the aches that felt like they had settled in for a long visit, ran a critical eye over his poor sleigh.

"We, um, had a little accident," he answered, half abashed and half rueful. "Elsa had to make a few minor repairs."

"Minor?" Anna exclaimed, staring at the sheets of ice that, in some places, seemed to be the only thing still holding the vehicle together. Then she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. "I didn't think I'd have to be sitting on ice the entire way back to Arendelle."

Only then did it occur to any of them that Anna was still clothed in nothing more than the garments she'd been wearing inside the castle on the day when the Snow Queen had taken her. On their journey north, some part of the magic in Skadi's kiss had inured her to the cold. Now that the spell was broken and she found herself standing in the open air without even the sheltering effect of the palace's white walls, the arctic temperatures were making their presence felt most keenly. She shivered again.

Silently cursing this embarrassing oversight, Kristoff immediately pulled off his fur-lined mittens and overtunic and proceeded to tug them over Anna's head and hands. They were so large on her slight frame that she looked like a little girl playing dress-up, and he was unable to keep himself from smiling at the rather comical sight. "Well, at least they ought to keep you warm," he said apologetically. "Gerda did pack a change of clothes for you, but I'm afraid they got lost in the accident."

"That must have been some accident," said Anna, shrugging repeatedly in an attempt to settle the heavy tunic into a more comfortable position. "You do know that you're going to have to tell me all about it sooner or later, right?"

"Later, then," he said, glancing back toward the palace door. "We'll have plenty of time to compare notes on the way home. In fact, unless I miss my guess, we'll be wishing we had more stories to tell before we get back. It's going to be a long trip, so the sooner we get started, the happier I'll be." He scowled irritably. "I don't understand what's taking her so long."

"Kristoff," Anna said almost chidingly, "this has been her home for centuries. We just asked her to leave it all behind and come live with us in Arendelle. Honestly, I'm still amazed that she said yes! If she wants to take a bit of time to say goodbye to the place before we go, that's not really so much to ask, is it?"

"That depends," offered Rohl. He had hopped up onto the open tailgate and was now leaning against the sideboard as his eyes swept across the broad expanse of snow-covered facade before them. "If she decides to make a farewell tour of the entire place, it could be another century before she's finally ready to leave."

"I'm sure she wouldn't do that," Anna replied, though as she tipped her head further and further back in an attempt to see the top of the fortress, she had to silently concede that they might very well be in for a much longer wait than any of them had originally anticipated.

"Do you think she'll like the Ice Palace?" asked Olaf as he scrambled up into the cargo bed beside Rohl. "Ooh, I really hope she and Marshmallow get along. I mean, they can both be a little bit moody sometimes, you know."

"Really?" Kristoff remarked dryly. "I hadn't noticed."

"Elsa?"

Though most of their party had now gathered together around the sled, the Queen of Arendelle continued to stand somewhat apart from the rest. She turned upon hearing her sister's call, yet even though she smiled at Anna, her expression remained distractedly distant. Crossing to where Elsa stood just outside the door, Anna laid a hand upon one slim shoulder.

"Elsa, what's wrong?"

"Oh, it's nothing." She made a visible effort to invest her smile with a bit more honest emotion, but the look she got back from Anna made it clear that she wouldn't be able to fool her sister that easily. Relenting with a soundless sigh, she turned again to peer through the gaping doorway.

"I was just wondering if Mother and Father would have approved of this decision," she said quietly, "after all they were put through because of the things Skadi did."

Anna's mouth opened in a silent, "Oh!" Then her hand slid across Elsa's back. Her fingers wrapped around her sister's other arm, and she drew them together in a partial embrace. "Do you believe it's the right thing to do?" she asked.

Elsa's expression shifted to one of serious deliberation. She continued to stare into the shadowed recesses of the snow fortress in much the same way that she continued to wrestle with the complexities of that simple question. Finally, after what seemed like a very long time, she nodded. "I do. Having to live your life tormented by memories of the pain and suffering of those you loved..." She shuddered, then reached up and squeezed Anna's hand with her own. "Thirteen years of those memories nearly broke me. I can't imagine what they might have done if they'd had millennia of solitude to work with." She swallowed thickly at the thought.

"Skadi is far stronger than I am to still be sane after everything she's endured. So if I was worthy of a second chance, then heaven knows she deserves one, too."

Anna smiled, even though Elsa's face was turned away so that she couldn't see it. "Well, there's your answer then," she said encouragingly. "Mama and Papa always had faith in you. They taught you everything they could, and they never once believed that you wouldn't be ready to take the throne when the time came. They knew that you would rule our people with intelligence, compassion, and humility, just like Father always did. And that's exactly what you're doing now. So yes, I think they'd approve completely. And I'm certain they'd have been ever so proud of you."

Now, Elsa turned to once again face her sister. She still looked doubtful, but her features also showed signs of hope. She wanted to believe Anna's words, yet she couldn't quite make that leap on her own. Anna's smile made belief a little easier, then her next words pushed it over the top.

"I'm proud of you too, Elsa."

The Queen of Arendelle smiled back. But before she could say anything in reply, a series out loud grunting, snuffling noises drew everyone's attention to the door. Both sisters quickly backed away as three shapes came around the corner. The Snow Queen and her two polar bear friends stepped out into the wintry light.

"Bernie!" Olaf called out in happy excitement. "Barney!" The two bears took absolutely no notice of the snowman, however. Instead, they looked with intent curiosity into the bright blue eyes of the woman who had just crouched down before them.

"Once again, I am leaving on a long journey," she said in soothing tones, "but this time, you cannot accompany me. I do not know when I will return. By the time I do, it may be your children or your children's children's children that will rule this land. Or perhaps you and your kin will decide to return north. As always, you are free to do as you will. However you choose, know that, in my absence, I leave all of this to you. You may live here for as long or as little as you wish. Only... I would have it remain a sanctuary for all animals great and small, a place of peace and safety. As you have learned not to prey upon those who shelter here, so teach your cubs as well. But beyond that, consider it yours. May you abide here in health and harmony for as long as you wish to remain."

There was something, some aspect of the bears' expressions that left Anna absolutely certain they had understood the words that had been spoken to them. This should have been incredible and completely unbelievable, but given everything else that she had seen and learned recently, the only surprising thing about it was how little it surprised her.

One of the bears took a step forward and, with a gentleness that was totally at odds with its imposing bulk, nuzzled its furry face against the Snow Queen's cheek. The woman's arm curled up around the thick neck and her hand stroked the top of the bear's head. The other animal let out what sounded to Anna like a sorrowful moan, and it prodded Skadi's free hand with its nose. In return, she reached up and scratched it fondly between the ears. Its eyes closed in a quiet contentment that lasted several luxuriant seconds. Then the scratching ceased as Skadi withdrew her hands and rose to her full and graceful height.

"Go, my friends," she said quietly. "Live well and live long. When the north wind blows and the night sky glows, perhaps you may, in your own way, remember the times we spent together. Even though for the first time in untold ages I now have the ability to do so, I do not believe that I will forget either of you any time soon."

Both bears looked up at her and snuffled. Then they lifted their snouts and sniffed at the arctic air, turning their heads this way and that as if examining the choices that the world was offering to them. Finally, with slow and deliberate movements, they turned and walked back through the open doorway, vanishing once again into the immense warren that they knew as Home.

Anna watched Skadi's face, trying to read there the play of emotions that she knew had to be roiling beneath the surface. The only sign she saw, however, was a flaring of nostrils as the stately woman drew in a long breath. The exhalation that followed was something just short of a sigh.

"It is time to leave," Skadi said. With a sweep of her long cloak, she turned and strode toward the sled, her eyes conspicuously refusing to make contact with anyone else's.

Kristoff quickly moved to stand beside Sven, instinctively shielding his friend while ensuring that neither of them could be considered an obstruction in need of moving. He might not be prepared to admit it to Anna, but his personal opinion of the Snow Queen at this point remained only marginally better than Rohl's, so he was not at all sure that he would have made the same choice that Elsa had. Normally, he was perfectly happy that such decisions lay well beyond his responsibility. Right then, however, he was struggling to move past his distrust of Skadi, and he was not particularly looking forward to an extended journey with her in the all-too-cramped confines of his modest sled.

He was slightly mollified – but only slightly – when she chose not to climb up onto the driver's bench. Instead, a short series of steps rose out of the snow, allowing her to proceed smoothly up into the rear bed. A chair materialized beneath her, just in front of the tail gate, and she folded herself onto it with great dignity. There she sat, staring straight ahead and giving off that distinctive aura of an impatient person trying her hardest to remain wholly unperturbed by the dalliances of those around her.

The two sisters approached the sleigh, but stopped a few paces off when, for a brief moment, Anna's lower lip slid between her teeth as it so often did whenever she began to feel flustered. She looked at the sled, then cast a sidelong glance in Elsa's direction. "Um, there's not a lot of room left, is there?" she observed with a nervous wave of her hand. "I mean, it was only ever designed to carry two passengers and their cargo, after all. I don't think I ever imagined it would have to manage four people plus a snowman and a troll." She bit her lip again. Though she hadn't, in truth, had time to give it all that much thought, she supposed that she'd been expecting to spend the trip in close conversation with Elsa, making up for their lengthy separation. But now, she couldn't see how that would be possible. There would be room on the front bench beside Kristoff, of course, and probably just enough space for another in the back. There was not, however, any place where they would both be able to sit together

"I guess I'll just have to sit in the back then," Elsa said, her voice light and airy. "You should definitely sit up front. After all, you've had the worst of it lately, so you ought to at least make yourself comfortable now." Then she leaned in close so that her lips hovered just beside Anna's ear. "And besides," she whispered, a playful grin tugging at the corners of her mouth, "I'm sure Kristoff will welcome the opportunity to keep you warm."

"Elsa!" Anna exclaimed, her face flushing crimson. Yet despite her embarrassment, she could not keep her eyes from flicking toward the burly ice harvester, and a shy smile of her own accompanied a further deepening of her blush.

"He really does love you, you know," Elsa continued quietly. "With all his heart."

Slowly, Anna nodded. "I love him, too." _And now, I really understand what that means,_ she added silently to herself.

"There was a time not that long ago," Elsa said in a voice so full of false casualness, it should have been inspecting its own fingernails, "when someone asked me to give my blessing to her marriage. I suspect if that same someone were to ask me again today, she would most likely get a very different answer."

Anna felt her jaw drop. But before she could respond, Elsa was already moving off, a wave of snow cresting beneath her feet and carrying her up into the bed of the sledge where a second seat materialized right beside the Snow Queen's. Anna spent another second or two rooted to the spot, valiantly attempting to process her sister's words. She finally broke free of their spell only after giving herself a little shake... which was when she noticed Kristoff staring expectantly in her direction.

Realizing that her mouth was still hanging open, she quickly snapped it shut and hurried to cross the remaining distance to the driver's bench. If Kristoff made note of the rosy color that bloomed once again across her cheeks when he offered his hand to help her up, she was grateful that he at least made no mention of it. He merely climbed up beside her, picked up the reins, and gave them a light snap.

"Let's go, Sven."

The reindeer gave a honking bleat, then began to strain against his harness straps. Slowly, ponderously, the overburdened sled started to crawl forward.

"Oh, poor Sven," Anna crooned sympathetically. "He's had a long trip and hardly any time to rest. Do you think maybe we ought to wait a few days before we… we..."

"Wheeeee!"

The exclamation came from Olaf as an oblong section of snow beneath them shimmered, flashed, and then suddenly crystallized into a thick sheet of ice that immediately began to rise into the air. Sven's hooves momentarily scrabbled for purchase before finally finding stability once again. The reindeer craned his neck to peek over the edge of the floating slab. The instant he saw the ground falling away beneath them, he quickly backpedaled until his rump bumped into the front of the sled.

"We're… _flying_?"

Anna looked back and forth between reindeer and driver. Though the question had come from Kristoff's mouth, his half-strangled voice had left her unsure whether he'd meant to speak for himself or for Sven. A mischievous little grin parted her lips.

" _If it would make you feel any better, maybe we could get a few of my cousins to help,"_ she offered in what she thought was a fair imitation of Sven's voice. _"I think maybe if we could find seven more..."_

"Careful, Anna," Elsa cautioned from the back of the sled, her voice almost managing to conceal her own smile. "He doesn't like it when anybody but him tries to put words into Sven's mouth."

Kristoff whipped around to fire a surly look back over his shoulder. He seemed to instantly regret it, however, though not apparently because of the sentiment it conveyed. Quickly turning to face forward again, he locked his eyes tightly upon the reins in his hands. That was when Anna noticed an unmistakable tinge of green creeping into his complexion.

"Kristoff!" she exclaimed, trying hard not to let laughter color her voice. "All those years climbing up the sides of mountains, racing along narrow trails with a sheer drop only an arm's length away, and you're... afraid of heights?"

"Of course not," he scoffed disdainfully. "What good would I be as an ice harvester if I was afraid of heights? I don't have any problem with heights whatsoever." Then he swallowed. "It's just that… there's always been good, solid rock holding up those heights."

"Maybe you just need to give it a little time," Anna replied, attempting to turn any amusement still in her voice into cheerful encouragement. "I mean, I got used to it after a while. And look, even Sven's giving it a chance now!"

Sure enough, the reindeer had slowly crept forward so that he now lay at the edge of the ice with just his head hanging over the lip. From that vantage point, he stared down in wide-eyed wonder at the miniature world that sped by beneath them. Seeing this, Kristoff slowly leaned away from Anna and, finally, ventured a quick glance past the side of the sled. Then he snapped bolt upright and returned to staring fixedly at his hands.

"Okay," Anna reluctantly conceded. "Maybe more than just a little time. Good thing it's a long trip, hmm?"

"Wonderful," mumbled Kristoff, his lips barely moving. He seemed to have come to the conclusion that clamping his mouth firmly shut was suddenly a most excellent idea.

Anna considered him a moment longer. Then she slid across the bench and carefully pried the fingers of his hand off the reins. Wrapping his arm across her shoulders, she proceeded to snuggle tightly against his side. It only took a second or two before she felt some of the tension vanish from the muscles in his chest, and he'd soon adjusted his own position so that their bodies fit together even better than before. She allowed herself a soft hum of contentment.

Untold leagues still lay between them and Arendelle. Anna realized this. But at that moment, they hardly seemed to matter. She was already home.

• • •

"Well," said Kristoff, "I suppose this is goodbye."

They stood in the shadow of the rocky escarpment, the towering height of which seemed to dwarf them in much the same way as had the outer walls of the Snow Queen's mighty fortress. Only Skadi remained seated in the sled. Because of her presence, they'd chosen to land here – far enough away from the trolls' grotto to remain out of sight. No one was entirely sure how the clan might react to the sudden appearance of their ancient adversary. All had agreed that discretion would be wise.

"I suppose it is," agreed Rohl with a slight nod of his head. Though he turned to face Kristoff, he somehow managed to avoid the tall man's gaze. There was also a slightly sour look on his stony face, giving the impression that an unpleasant odor of some sort had filled his nostrils.

"Sorry for all the trouble we put you through." Kristoff continued, scratching the back of his head distractedly. "And sorry you lost your fire crystal because of us. I swear, I'm going to search through all the caves back home, and I'll send you the biggest replacement I can find. Though," and he looked around with some chagrin, "I'm not sure the post delivers out this far. But I'll find a way. You have my word on it."

Rohl shook his head, "Thanks, but… Well, it was only a crystal. I'll find another one soon enough, I suspect. No doubt I'll be back to work before long, crawling through caves again and all that." There was a notable lack of enthusiasm in his voice at the prospect. "Thanks for the thought all the same."

Olaf decided that it was his turn next and, since they were basically at the same height, Rohl had a harder time averting his eyes without being outright rude about it. Besides, he seemed genuinely startled when the snowman bounded forward, grabbed Rohl's hand in both of his own, and shook vigorously.

"It was so nice to get to meet one of Kristoff's distant cousins," Olaf proclaimed enthusiastically. "I just wish we'd had more time to talk, you know?. I still have so many questions! Like, is it true that there are days during the summer here when the sun never sets? Because that sounds amazing! And I was curious whether or not your clan are also fellow love experts. Or, ooh, since I haven't seen any woods nearby, where do you go when you need to…?"

"Olaf!"

The snowman looked up, blinking in confused response to Kristoff's exclamation. "But you were the one who told me what trolls do in the woods, so I was just wondering.."

"Not. Now. Olaf." Kristoff ground the words out through clenched teeth, one hand covering his eyes in mortification. Then he blew out an exasperated breath. "Just… just say goodbye, okay?"

Olaf stared at Kristoff for a moment longer, then shrugged. "Okay," and he turned back to face the troll again. "Goodbye, Rohl. I hope I get the chance to come back and visit again. I'd really like to get to know the rest of your family some day." Then, releasing his grip on Rohl's hand and, using his spindly fingers to hide his mouth from the ice harvester, he leaned in conspiratorially. "And sorry about Kristoff. For a funny-smelling reindeer-donkey, he really gets some strange ideas now and then. It can be a little embarrassing."

"Um, no problem," Rohl mumbled. "Bye, Olaf."

As the snowman backed away, Anna stepped forward. "It sounds like I didn't get the chance to see you at your bravest," she began. "But from what I've pieced together so far, and from what I saw you do in the throne room to help Elsa and Kristoff rescue me… Well, I think you might just be the most courageous troll I've ever met." She paused, then smiled. "Though Kristoff would probably be a close second. So from the bottom of my heart, I really want to thank you. So very much. For everything."

Anna bent forward then and, before Rohl realized what was happening, planted a kiss squarely in the middle of his forehead. A red color like cooling lava burned briefly in his cheeks, and it took him a few beats before he finally managed to stammer out an awkward, "W'lcome."

If Anna and Olaf noticed nothing odd about Rohl's behavior, it was undoubtedly because they hadn't had nearly as long to get to know him. But Elsa eyed the troll shrewdly, though not without her own share of fondness and gratitude. It struck her as decidedly odd that the normally brash and brazen scout could now barely seem to bring himself to look back at any of them. Even when she lowered herself until she was nearly at his eye level, he still continued to avert his gaze.

"Rohl, words cannot truly express how grateful I am that we met you," she said into the awkward space between them. "Without your help, we never would have been able to find and rescue Anna. And while I know that Grand Mahble refused any show of our gratitude earlier, if there is anything that _you_ would ask of me, anything in my power to give, then I would happily repay you for everything that you have done. You only have to ask."

Though his head remained lowered, Rohl's eyes glanced quickly up at Elsa. In the next instant, they were again staring at the snow-covered ground before him. His feet shuffled self-consciously, which seemed totally out of character compared to his usual blunt confidence. As if attempting to make the disconnect even more pronounced, Rohl opened his mouth, paused to reconsider, then shook his head. This indecision was not lost on Elsa.

"So there is something." She reached out a hand, planning to tilt his chin so that he would have to look at her, but at the last second thought better of it. "What is it, Rohl?" she asked softly. "You needn't be embarrassed. Your actions helped save both the Queen and the Princess of Arendelle, along with all of our closest friends. I think anyone would agree that such deeds are worthy of a mighty reward."

At last, Rohl looked properly up at her, then turned his head to take in all the others gathered around him. "I..." he began. "That is, it's not… I really don't want anything from you, but there's something… something I'd like to... Only… Only it's not entirely my decision as to whether..."

He broke off, his expression clearly betraying how annoyed he was with his sudden inability to complete a simple sentence. Then he appeared to almost physically push himself through his hesitation. He stood up to his full height (such as it was), squared his shoulders, and jutted out his chin.

"Look, I know you're in a hurry to get back home," he said with considerably less timidity, "and I don't blame you. But before you leave, would you mind waiting here for a few more minutes? I just need to go and… Well, I'll be right back. I promise." His brows rose in anticipation of the answer.

For a moment, Elsa did not respond, so sudden and unexpected was his request. Then she twisted around to look up at Anna and Kristoff. When neither one objected, she turned back to Rohl and nodded. "Of course, we'll wait. But what is…?"

"Great!" Rohl interrupted, already hurrying off in the direction of the troll's grotto. "This shouldn't take long. Like I said, no more than a few minutes. Just wait right there, okay?"

They were all left standing dumbstruck. Only after the troll had dwindled from sight did any of them move, exchanging puzzled looks at their friend's strange behavior.

• • •

In the end, Rohl's optimistic estimate was proven to be just that. The better part of an hour actually passed before Olaf, from the lookout post he had claimed upon Sven's back, called out, "Hey, guys! They're coming!"

"They?" Anna asked as she sat up. She'd been lying across the driver's bench, her head pillowed on Kristoff's lap. Now they both peered through the fading twilight as Elsa came to stand alongside them, all trying to catch a glimpse of what Olaf had seen.

"There are two of them," Olaf explained as he spun around and leaped from Sven, bouncing off Kristoff's chest on his way down to the ground. Then he hurried forward, coming to a halt a short distance in front of the sled, hopping from one foot to the other in his eagerness to greet the newcomers.

"Sorry that took so long," Rohl called out as he drew near. By this time, the three humans had all come to stand beside Olaf. At last, the two trolls stopped a few paces away. Then Rohl cleared his throat and looked toward his companion. "You already know Queen Elsa and Kristoff, of course. This here is Olaf." The snowman responded with a jaunty wave and a broad grin. "And this," Rohl gestured with one hand, "is Princess Anna. Olaf, Anna, this is the leader of my clan, Grand Mahble."

Anna managed a respectable curtsey despite being encumbered by Kristoff's oversized coat. "Very pleased to meet you," she said in her most courtly voice.

"So you're the one that all this fuss has been about, hmm?" Though her words might have hinted at a certain degree of irritation, Mahble's tone was that of a mother catching her child in an amusing but otherwise harmless indiscretion. "Well, I'm glad it's all turned out right in the end." Then the troll matriarch looked past them toward the sled's one remaining occupant.

"Oh, my manners," Anna said in embarrassment. "I should introduce you to..."

Grand Mahble held up a hand. "That won't be necessary. I don't believe she and I would have much to say to each other. Besides, Rohl tells me that you will be taking her back south with you when you go?" Anna and Elsa both nodded. "Well then, she won't be of any concern to me and mine, for a little while at any rate.

"There is another matter, however, that does concern me," she continued, returning her attention to the group from Arendelle. "I need to know that my people will remain safe. All of them."

"I assure you, Grand Mahble," Elsa replied, "that if your wish is to continue to live here in secret, then none will hear about you from us. On that, you have my word."

"Yes, but I'm afraid I'm going to need a little more than that," Mahble replied gruffly.

Elsa blinked. "I'm… not sure what else I can offer you as proof of my intentions besides my word."

"Oh, I'm willing to trust your word. What I need is an additional promise. I need your guarantee that you'll see Rohl here delivered safely to our kin in the south. He's got it in his head, you see, that we ought to send an ambassador to our long-lost cousins. More than that, he's decided that he's the right troll for the job."

"What?" Kristoff exclaimed, his face lighting up. "Really? That's fantastic, Rohl! I know that Bulda and Cliff and all the rest will be really excited to meet you, and I'm sure Grand Pabbie will have all kinds of questions, and..."

"I wasn't sure about the whole idea at first," Mahble said a little too loudly, cutting across Kristoff, "but after a lengthy debate on the matter, it became clear that he wasn't about to take no for an answer, whatever I said. So I finally agreed to let him go. But I know perfectly well just how reckless he can be sometimes, like how he rescued the two of you and then brought you right to our very doorstep. That's why I need to know that, if I send him along with you, I will be able to count on him making the journey without incident."

Elsa didn't even have to pause to think before she answered. "I'm sorry, but I can't make such a promise."

Grand Mahble gifted her with a surprised look that quickly melted into a scowl. Kristoff's expression was hardly much happier. But before either could protest, Elsa continued. "I know the dangers that we faced on our journey north from Arendelle, and I'm sure there were many more that we failed to encounter through no action on our part beyond simple good fortune. So I cannot, in good conscience, guarantee that our journey south will be wholly uneventful, nor that any in our party will be safe the entire way – with the possible exception of Skadi.

"But what I can promise you is this. We will treat Rohl as though he were one of our own, because as far as I'm concerned, he already is. Should he get himself into any danger along the way, I will do as much as I possibly can to protect him – as much as I would do for Kristoff or for my sister."

"And so will I," agreed Kristoff.

"Me too," Anna added.

"Me three!" blurted Olaf. "Er, four. No, wait. Um, just a second…" While he began to count quickly on his fingers, Mahble smiled.

"That will do," she said with a nod. "And with that," she turned to Rohl, "you may go with my blessing. But do try to find some way to let us know when you arrive safely, and write home as often as you can after that. After all," and a twinkle glinted in her dark eyes, "you aren't exactly the only one curious about our southern relatives."

"Yes, ma'am," Rohl said, his own face splitting into a wide grin. "I promise, I'll do the clan proud!"

"Too late," Mahble replied, patting his cheek affectionately. "You've already done that."

The two trolls let the quiet moment between them last just a little bit longer. Then Rohl hefted his newly-bulging pack higher on his back and turning, looked up at his new friends. "Well, shall we go then?"

With a change of attitude so abrupt it startled nearly everyone, Mahble's hand came up to smack Rohl on the back of his head. "Now who's forgetting their manners?" she asked sharply. "It's getting dark and these poor souls all look exhausted. Come," she said, waving at them invitingly. "You can stay with us tonight. Rest a little. Get some warm food in your bellies. Enjoy a soak in the hot springs." A little groan of anticipatory pleasure escaped Kristoff. "You can all set out in the morning."

"Um, excuse me," Anna piped up, "but what about Skadi?" She glanced over her shoulder at the regal figure still seated in the back of Kristoff's sleigh.

The uncertain and uncomfortable silence that followed was finally broken by the Snow Queen herself.

"Do not concern yourself," she said without rancor. "I am perfectly content to remain here for the night. I do not mind the cold. In fact, I should find the warmth of the hot springs to be far more uncomfortable. If I feel the need for shelter, I can make my own easily enough. But for the moment..."

She tipped her head back and looked up at the sky. Distant pinpricks of light were now dotting the deepening darkness overhead. "For the moment, I think I shall gaze upon what remains of the Bifrost. And I will remember."

The second silence was still uncertain, but the unspoken strain had at least vanished. With measured grace, Elsa strode over to the side of the sled and, reaching up, placed one hand lightly upon Skadi's wrist. "If you need anything..." she began.

The Snow Queen smiled at her, then closed her eyes and bowed her head with gratitude for the gesture. "Go," she said quietly. "Be with your family and your friends."

Elsa held her gaze a moment longer, then nodded. Turning, she walked back to the rejoin the group and they all headed off, Rohl in the lead lighting the way with a crystal he had dug out of his pack. Skadi watched them go, then lifted her face back to the heavens.

 _Enjoy them now,_ she thought. _Bask in the bright glow of their company. Love them while you can. For they, like all things in this sad mortal world, will be gone far too soon._

Overhead, the first streamers of green began to color the sky.

* * *

 **A/N: Well, I'm back. Yet I'll be the first to admit that the fire that spurred me on through _Echoes_ and carried me through _Memories_ is no longer as hot as it once was. I can't make any guarantees about how quick or consistent I'll be when it comes to churning out new chapters, but I do plan to finish out _Reclaim_ – hopefully before the end of the year!**


	37. Life's Too Short

Perhaps it was random chance inadvertently balancing the scales for past misfortunes.

Perhaps it was fate biding its time in anticipation of the final blow yet to come.

Or perhaps it was that their party now included not one but two women who both held winter's mighty power at their beck and call. Or that they rode in a sled that, as often as not, glided along on a shimmering carpet of ice. Sometimes it flew above the treetops. Sometimes it skimmed so close to the ground that a plume of snow fountained in its wake.

Whatever the reasons, the concerns that Elsa had expressed to Grand Mahble seemed determined to be proven wrong. Truth be told, it looked for all the world like Kristoff had been closer to the mark. Though magically hastened, their trek south had otherwise been uneventful, bordering on downright dull, and they had made remarkably good time as a result. No bandits impeded them. No obstacles blocked their path. Not even the slightest flurry had obscured their skies. Well, except for ones of their own making, but at least those provided some interesting diversions.

"Hmm. That is certainly nearer the mark, but still not quite what I was trying to convey. Watch more closely. The difference is subtle but important. It needs to be less this... and more that."

Anna twisted around on the bench beside Kristoff to get a better look, just in time to watch two different jets of ice crystals rocket into the air from the ends of Skadi's fingertips. Try as she might, she couldn't tell them apart. A quick glance at her sister's face, though, told her that Elsa was definitely seeing something more. She wore the look of intense concentration that so often settled there during these lessons. Her eyes darted around as if focusing on every individual flake that twinkled in the midmorning sunlight, and she was nodding almost imperceptibly. In her lap, her fingers had already begun to twitch their way through a series of rehearsal motions.

"Okay, I think I get it," she said cautiously. "So like..." And since there were no words precise enough to describe the tiny nuances in technique that only she and Skadi could understand, she opted instead for action. A twirl, a thrust, and a flick sent a spray of her own shooting up into the sky.

"Yes! Much better. You are an impressively quick study."

Anna, whose face was split in a wide grin of pride at her sister's success, caught Elsa's eyes only briefly. The smile she got back in return was even shorter-lived, for Elsa's attention was almost immediately drawn back to Skadi's next bit of instruction.

As she turned to face forward again, Anna's gaze swept over Kristoff's face. Her eyes then rolled toward the heavens, for she'd caught sight of the familiar scowl that was curving his mouth downward. It always seemed more likely to come out of hiding during Elsa's training sessions. Anna rather doubted that it was a coincidence that Kristoff's temper soured during these times. They were, after all, when the Snow Queen was at her most talkative.

Whatever change Fare had wrought by joining (or was that rejoining?) with Skadi, it hadn't changed her fundamentally reserved nature. She wasn't antisocial exactly. Whenever someone spoke to her, she would respond in appropriate fashion, and she would allow herself to be drawn into a conversation without undue prodding. But she would rarely initiate one herself, nor would she attempt to keep one going if it began to wane. Left to her own devices, she seemed content to just sit quietly, presumably engaged in private contemplations on topics of her own choosing.

Anna suspected that Kristoff preferred those stretches because they made it easier for him to pretend that Skadi wasn't actually there. He'd never come out and said anything, nor had he been in any way rude to her, but he was too straightforward a man to be able to keep his feelings from slipping into his body language. He became visibly tense whenever he was reminded of her presence, and his frown crept out more frequently.

That was almost certainly the reason, she knew, why he had insisted early on that the sled ought to travel the "old-fashioned way" whenever Elsa was being taught the finer points of her magic. Despite Skadi's insistence that she could handle both tasks without difficulty, Kristoff had argued that the exercise was good for Sven and would also help to soothe his ego.

The latter seemed plausible enough too, for the reindeer did begin to sulk a bit whenever they relied on magical propulsion for too long. After all, he'd spent practically his entire life pulling Kristoff along in one sled or another. As far as Sven was concerned, that was simply his job. So a few hours putting his own trusty muscles to work every now and then let him feel like he was still doing his fair share.

Privately though, Anna remained convinced that Kristoff simply didn't trust himself to listen to Skadi educating Elsa while at the same time being suspended some distance up in the air by her magics. Either one by itself, he was just about able to tolerate, but the two together...

"It will be good to get back to Arendelle," she said, her voice conspicuously bright and chipper.

"Mm." Kristoff barely acknowledged her attempt to distract him, but Anna, being Anna, plowed right on ahead anyway.

"You know when I was growing up, I always dreamed about getting out of the castle. I wanted so badly to just escape, to run off and see what all was out there in the rest of the big, wide world." A very self-aware smile quirked her lips. "Now I'm starting to realize that sometimes, the best part about leaving home is getting to come back."

"I suppose so," he replied. His flat tone spoke of a response triggered not so much by her words but by the silence that had followed and the expectation for him to fill it in some way.

"It'll be good to see all our friends again," she went on doggedly. "I'm sure they've been worried sick. Oh, but what will Bulda, Cliff, and the rest of your family be thinking? I wonder if they even heard what happened! I know they're used to you going off on long treks into the mountains, but even so, they have to be getting a little worried by how long you've been away without a visit."

Some part of this penetrated Kristoff's distraction, and the character of his frown changed as Anna's words rolled around inside his brain. Then he shook his head. "No, they have to know what happened. Even if word never reached them from Arendelle itself, they'd still have found out by now. King Ulrik would have told them."

"King Who?" Anna asked. Then her mind connected the name with part of the story Kristoff had told her about his and Elsa's adventures. "Oh! King Ulrik of Kråkeheim! That's right. You said you sent him to see if Grand Pabbie could help restore Queen Olavine's memories. And once he got there, he'd have to explain how he knew how to get there. So then he'd have to explain how he met you and why you were in Kråkeheim in the first place, which would of course mean explaining why you left Arendelle, and that would mean explaining everything that had happened between Skadi and Elsa and me. Which would all be very confusing if he explained it in that order, because it would all be completely backwards. Ooh, and he'd also have to explain what happened to Queen Olavine and..."

Anna broke off abruptly and this time, for a change, it wasn't because she'd recognized another one of her wandering rambles. Instead, she stared at Kristoff with a startled expression on her face, then glanced back over her shoulder to where Elsa and Skadi were still immersed in a conversation of their own.

A second or two passed, then Anna slid across the bench until she was pressed right up against Kristoff's side. Mistaking her intent, he began to free one hand from the reins so that he could drape his arm about her. Before he could settle it into place, however, Anna stretched herself up so that her lips nearly brushed his ear.

"Um, did I miss something," she whispered, "or did Skadi never actually explain why she took Olavine's memories?"

Kristoff thought briefly before shrugging. "I don't know. I guess not. Why?"

"Exactly! Why? Why did she do it?" But Kristoff just stared at her blankly, and Anna began to get a little annoyed. "Aren't you at all curious?"

He shrugged again. "That's just what she does, isn't it – take people's memories? She took Kai's, she took your mother's, she took yours..."

"Yeah, but each time, she had a reason," Anna insisted, still speaking quietly so that only Kristoff would hear. "She explained that she took Kai's because she'd been trying to find a child who could be trained to erase her memories for her, and she wanted to work with a clean slate. She took my mother's memories out of fear that, were they left intact, Mother might have been able to do something that would have thwarted her plans."

Anna's face screwed up in thought as she continued to follow the chain of thought. "The first time she took my memories, the memories of my parents, I think she honestly believed that she was doing me a favor. She must have believed that they were hurting me as much as her own memories of those she'd lost were hurting her.

"The second time, when she took my memories of you… Well, that time I made her angry. More than that, I think I said some things that really hurt her feelings. So she acted out of spite. Not the best of reasons, I know – she did apologize later – but still, there was a reason.

"And when she took the last of my memories, right before she made me forget Elsa and Olaf and everyone else who ever cared for me, she told me that she was only doing it because she felt that it was the only way to awaken Elsa's powers. She was certain that was the last hope she would ever have to finally be able to forget, and that only something truly drastic would awaken the magic within Elsa that she had really been hoping to find all along."

She fixed Kristoff with an earnest look. "So you see, I don't think she ever took anyone's memories just because she could or because that's just what she does. She always had some sort of reason. So why would she take all of Queen Olavine's memories?"

"Not all of them," he corrected. "Just… most of them. She still remembered her childhood. She completely believed she was a young princess again, the same one who had proclaimed to the entire kingdom that she was seeking a young man to become her prince."

"Okay. But _why?_ "

This time, it was Kristoff's turn to glance into the back of the sled. There, he saw Olaf floating upon a small circle of ice in front of the two women. The snowman was grinning quite foolishly and giving off the overwhelming impression that he was trying exceedingly hard not to caper in place lest he tip the whole business over.

Kristoff's unusual interest in the proceedings was enough to garner some attention. When the Snow Queen turned her head slightly to look at him, their eyes met briefly. He looked back at her with a stony expression for a beat, then turned to face forward again.

"I'm not going to ask her," he said to Anna out of the side of his mouth.

"Well, somebody should," Anna said, crossing her arms and veering dangerously close to a petulant pout. "After all, don't you think King Ulrik deserves to know?"

"Then he can ask. They'll all know where to find her soon enough. It's not as if we're going be able to hide the fact that Arendelle will be home to two Snow Queens. News like that will spread faster than winter on Coronation Day. So if he really wants answers, he can pay a visit to the ice palace himself."

"That seems rather cold." Anna's voice held a definite note of rebuke.

Kristoff heaved a sigh. "Maybe it is, but so is she," and with a jerk of his head, he indicated Skadi.

"Now that's just not fair!"

"Isn't it? Anna, maybe you don't understand, but when I saw what she had done to you…" He paused, seeming to struggle with his next words. Then his features settled into resolute lines as he continued.

"I'm not a violent man," he said. "I'm strong because I have to be to do what I do for a living. It isn't unusual for an ice harvesting party to be a dozen men, all told. Sven and I, we went up into the mountains and did the same work all by ourselves. So yeah, I got big.

"When I'd come down to Arendelle to sell my ice, I'd sometimes drop into one of the taverns for a meal and an ale. And once in a great while, a bar-clearing brawl would break out while I was there. But never once did I hit a man, even if he hit me first. I might have shown him the door by the scruff of his collar, but that's as far as I ever went. Then came that day on the fjord when I laid eyes on Hans.

"You hear people talk about being so angry that they see red, but I'd always thought that was just a figure of speech. Yet I swear, when I looked at him, my entire world went crimson. At that point, I didn't even know everything he had done to hurt you, but I knew enough. And I wanted to hurt him every bit as badly. I would have too, without a second thought, if you hadn't stopped me.

"And that was after I'd only known you for a few days! Can you imagine what it was like this time when _she_ took you from me? And then to finally find you, to see you there in that throne room so totally empty, blue as ice, cold as… as…" He swallowed.

"I don't care what her reasons were," he finished grimly. "She hurt you. You might be able to forgive her, but I'm not there yet. I'm not sure I ever will be."

Anna stared at him in confused amazement. She watched as he turned away to focus on the road ahead, clearly trying to distract himself from the emotions that roiled within. For her part, she was at a complete and total loss – not just about what to say but even what to think.

Olaf had told her that love meant putting someone else's needs before your own, and that had seemed right at the time. Then she had thought that love might also mean feeling comfortable enough with someone that you could simply be yourself around them, and that had felt right too. Now what Kristoff had just confided to her didn't really fit either of those descriptions, and yet somehow, in some way that she could not even begin to put into words, it still managed to feel very much like…

She suddenly knew exactly the words that she needed to say and, knowing them, wondered how they had ever managed to elude her. She also marveled that, in all the time she had known Kristoff and in all the conversations she'd had with him, she had somehow never quite managed to put them together in their proper order. Well, they were long overdue then, and the time had most definitely come to remedy that egregious oversight.

Stretching up once again, she planted a kiss firmly upon his cheek.

"I love you too," she said.

Kristoff's eyes grew round as saucers as his head whipped around to stare at her. She gave him a coy little smile, and his jaw dropped open. With a certain fond amusement, Anna watched him attempt to rally from his surprise. He'd just about managed to close his mouth and was drawing in breath to try and respond when the sled suddenly jerked violently.

The back-end began to slew across the slippery track. Anna was tossed against the far sideboard as Sven let out a startled _garonk!_ A short exclamation followed by a muffled thud let them know that Olaf had been unceremoniously unseated. Kristoff clutched the reins tightly in both hands and fought to help his friend regain control. Anna caught just a glimpse as a bolt of blue flashed past her ear. Then she felt the sled's runners catch and dig into a thick layer of fresh snow. The careening sleigh finally slowed to an almost gentle halt.

Anna looked up at Kristoff as she pushed herself upright again. He was already on his feet and was glaring over Sven's head at something that she could not see. His scowl was back and darker than ever, though this time, it was clearly not directed at Skadi.

"Oh, not this again," he growled. "Of all the stupid, moronic, bone-headed, reckless, completely brainless, absolutely idiotic..." The string of invective continued as Anna climbed to her own feet, and she sensed Elsa doing the same behind her. Together, they all stared at the mounted figure who blocked the road ahead.

Everything about the man seemed a little too large. He was barrel-chested, his shoulders even broader than Kristoff's. His stout legs would have put a few tree trunks to shame. The charger he rode seemed to have been scaled up in size to match its rider's bulk. A massive crossbow lay cradled in the crook of the man's arm. That it happened to be pointing away from them made it only slightly less intimidating. Standing sideways in the middle of the trace, horse and rider made a most effective roadblock.

"Um, friend of yours?" Anna asked quietly.

"We've met." Kristoff said, refusing to take his eyes off the burly figure. "And if he gets any ideas with that crossbow of his this time..."

"Just stay calm, Kristoff," warned Elsa. "We don't want any trouble."

"Maybe you ought to try explaining that to trouble then," he grumbled, "because it sure seems to have taken a liking to us."

There didn't seem to be much point in arguing against that all-too-true observation, so the little group simply watched and waited. Eventually with a quick jab of his heel, the horseman turned his mount and began a slow advance toward them. Like Kristoff, his unwavering gaze continued to hold them as he drew steadily nearer, until…

"Hail, Queen Elsa of Arendelle!" the man called out, bowing his torso slightly in deference to her royal rank.

"Lieutenant," Elsa replied crisply. "Why do you bar the road against us? When last we passed through these lands, we received promises of safe and unimpeded travel. What has changed that such oaths would now be broken?"

The ranger frowned. "The promises you were given still stand, Your Majesty, and if you wish to continue onward, you may do so. However, the soldiers of this kingdom have been given orders that, should you ever appear again within our borders, we are to extend an invitation of hospitality to you and..." His eyes flicked warily from Elsa's face to Skadi's, and he subtly adjusted the grip on his weapon. "...to all members of your party."

"That is very generous, Lieutenant," Elsa acknowledged, "but we have been away from home for far too long as it is, and we are all very anxious to..."

"King Ulrik would very much appreciate a chance to speak with you," he interrupted brazenly.

"As would Queen Olavine."

• • •

The throne room of Kråkeheim Palace was much as Kristoff and Elsa remembered it from their previous visit. Its grandeur, though, was enough to draw an appreciative "Wow!" from Olaf, and Rohl, who was never easily impressed, nevertheless felt compelled to comment, "Good stone," when they passed the great marble pillars. Even Anna, who had of course grown up in a castle herself, turned slowly around as she followed a step behind Elsa, the better to drink in all the magnificent detail woven into the ornate tapestries. Only Skadi, trailing along at the back of their party, seemed unimpressed.

All was not exactly the same, however. This time, the grand chamber was filled with the low murmur of many voices. Functionaries and various members of the royal court stood on either side of the main aisle or sat in groups of two or three in chairs against the walls, talking quietly amongst themselves. But as the visitors advanced, conversations faltered and faded. All eyes turned to follow them as they made their way to the far end of the room. There, in front of the twinned thrones, the six finally came to a halt.

"Your Majesties." Elsa paired her greeting with a careful curtsey, for though she was equal in standing to those before her, she was still a guest in their home. The others behind her followed her lead and proffered similar honors. Even Skadi gave a respectful nod.

There followed a long silence during which each member of their party in turn came under the intense scrutiny of the royal gaze, with the one who received the most attention also appearing to be the least affected by it. Finally, King Ulrik pulled his eyes away from Skadi's face and inclined his head in a nod of his own.

That was when the other major difference spoke.

"Welcome," Queen Olavine said with a gracious smile. "You are indeed most welcome. We had wondered whether we would ever see you pass this way again."

"We had wondered whether you were still alive." King Ulrik's voice was gruff, but his stolid expression had softened at the sound of his wife's voice.

Olavine, casting an admonishing look in his direction, adopted a conciliatory tone. "You will have to forgive my husband. He has long been possessed of an overly serious disposition, and recent events have not helped matters much. The cares of a kingdom weigh heavily upon both our shoulders." A hint of sadness touched her smile. "And we are neither of us as young as we once were."

"Your company has grown since we last parted ways," the king noted, his eyes again sweeping over the group. "I can guess the identities of some, but others," and he looked at Rohl, "are rather more a mystery."

"Please, Your Majesty," Anna said, taking a step forward. "I am Princess Anna of Arendelle. This is Rohl. That's Olaf, and this is Skadi." She sketched another curtsey. "We are all very honored to meet you."

"Skadi?" blurted out King Ulrik as his eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "You mean the Snow Queen, don't you?"

"Er, yes, Your Majesty."

Olavine reached over and laid a hand atop her husband's arm, a simple gesture that forestalled whatever he had been about to say. Instead, he merely grunted then lapsed into silence. He continued to scrutinize Skadi, however, like a duelist sizing up a deadly opponent.

"We are both pleased to have met all of you as well," Queen Olavine said instead. "Pleased and most grateful, especially to you, Mr. Bjorgman."

Kristoff could not have looked more surprised if Rohl had leaped up and tried to kiss him. He managed to choke out a slightly strangled, "Me?" He hadn't expected anyone to pay him much attention during this meeting, let alone single him out for special praise. Yet when he looked to his friends for support, he found that both sisters were simply smiling at him as if they'd expected nothing else.

"Yes, you, Mr. Bjorgman. Queen Elsa might have done most of the talking during your previous visit, but we also learned a considerable amount from the trolls during the time we spent with them. There was one – I believe her name was Bulda? – who had quite a lot to say about you."

Kristoff looked like he would rather be back dealing with Milda and her gang, or pretty much any place else if it came down to that, rather than having to stand there and contemplate the stories that his adoptive mother might have shared with the rulers of Kråkeheim.

"All quite complimentary, you can be sure," Olavine said with an understanding smile. "But it quickly became obvious which of you was chiefly responsible for convincing them to attempt to help us. For that, we are in your debt." Beside her, Ulrik shifted his attention long enough to direct a sharp nod of approval at Kristoff.

"I… I, um..." Kristoff stammered, even as he wondered why he was finding it so hard to talk normally with Queen Olavine and King Ulrik. From the minute he'd first met Anna, he'd had no problems talking to her even though she was every bit as royal as these two. But then, it _had_ just been the two of them, with no one else around. And they _ha_ _d_ been in his element, up in the mountains. Now there were so many eyes watching him, judging him, as he stood in the middle of this lavish throne room in the middle of this imposing castle in the middle of a foreign kingdom.

Just like there were whenever he stood with Anna in the middle of the Grand Ballroom, in the middle of Arendelle Castle, surrounded by the regal, the rich, and the powerful.

That was when it hit him. It wasn't really what all those other people thought of him that always made him feel so uncomfortable in these situations. He knew himself for what he was, and he'd never really worried all that much about what others might think of him. Had he ever attended one of those balls on his own, likely camping out near the buffet table the entire time, he wouldn't have cared one whit if some high-crust snob had turned their nose up at him.

Of course, he'd never been to one alone. Who would have invited him, a lowly ice harvester, before he had met Anna? Even now, she was always the one to insist that he go along with her, and then she always stood there with him, right by his side, all night long.

Let the world think whatever they wanted of him. That was fine; he didn't mind. But under no circumstance could he bear the thought that people might think less of Anna simply because she thought so much of him.

Yet here were the King and Queen of Kråkeheim, personally thanking him for what he had done on their behalf. And once again, Anna was right there with him. She continued to watch him, and her face positively beamed with pride. And he saw in her eyes what he should have seen long ago.

Anna never worried about what strangers thought of her either. She was exactly who she was – always generous, occasionally clumsy, ever friendly, sometimes overly excitable, kindhearted to the point of maybe being a little naive. She never attempted to hide any of that, never pretended to be anyone but herself.

And when everyone else had been convinced that Elsa was a danger to all of Arendelle, Anna had ignored them all. She had ridden off into the mountains because she believed in Elsa, and she hadn't cared if the rest of the world thought she was crazy for still having faith in a sister she hadn't really known for thirteen years. She could have lived with that. What she couldn't abide was them thinking that Elsa was in any way evil. She wanted everyone else to see her sister the way that she saw her, because she had never stopped loving Elsa.

In that way, Kristoff now realized, he and she were more alike than he had ever known. Because he loved Anna. And Anna loved him back.

And so, asked a defiant voice inside his head, who needed the rest of the world?

Kristoff straightened his shoulders and turned to look squarely at Queen Olavine. "It was my duty and my pleasure, Your Majesty," he said with a bow, "and no debt should be owed to a man for simply doing his duty."

"Well said," King Ulrik agreed with a hearty – and completely unexpected – laugh. "Well said, indeed. Many a man who might think himself your better could stand to learn that lesson." At this, his eyes danced around the room to pin several courtiers in rapid succession. "Yet it is also true that one friend may wish to repay another for a favor done. If there is anything you would ask of us…?"

"Honestly, Your Majesty," replied Kristoff, and he glanced quickly at Anna and at Elsa, at Olaf and Rohl, before returning his gaze to the king, "I think I have pretty much everything I need at the moment."

Ulrik considered both the statement and the man, his good humor slowly giving way to something more somber. "Perhaps," he said at last, "but moments pass, and you may find yourself in greater need sooner than you think."

Kristoff felt an ominous chill run down his spine at those words. For some reason, they didn't feel like they were referring to some vague and hypothetical future, but rather to something more imminent and all too real. Yet before he could ask what exactly the king had meant, Anna had put herself forward again.

"Queen Olavine?" From the eagerness in her voice, it was clear that she had been exercising all the patience she possessed to keep from speaking up sooner. "So Grand Pabbie was able to restore your memories? All of your memories?"

The queen smiled and nodded. "Yes, I remember everything again thanks to his kindly ministrations."

"So..." And for just a split second, Anna hesitated. "So does that mean you remember what happened just before Skadi took them from you?"

A collective gasp of disbelief rippled around the room. To many present, it surely must have seemed almost obscene to speak so directly about the cause of such heartache and pain. Queen Olavine, however, did not seem to share that view. She did not flinch, nor did she appear offended by the question. She did look away from Anna, but only to turn her gaze upon another. Skadi returned it with her usual implacable calm.

"Yes," Olavine answered in a slightly distant voice. "Yes, I remember that too."

Anna waited while the two women held a lengthy and entirely mute conversation. Then, when she could wait no longer, she awkwardly cleared her throat and said, "Um, I know it's really none of my business, and I don't mean to offend or anger you or anything, but… Well, it's just that I noticed that nobody here has, you know, tried to arrest or attack or imprison or really take any kind of revenge against Skadi. And considering what Kristoff told me about how everyone acted the last time around when they thought that Elsa was the Snow Queen, I guess I find that a little… I don't know… surprising? So I suppose I was sort of wondering… what exactly happened that day?"

The two queens remained in silent communion for several seconds more. Then, as if shaken out of a reverie, Olavine blinked and turned back to look at Anna. A smile made of bittersweet briefly ghosted her lips, and when she finally spoke, it was with reluctant embarrassment.

"I made a wish," she explained, "never dreaming that it might come true."

• • •

Olavine knelt by the side of the road, her head bowed over the forlorn body of the stricken bird that she cradled in her lap. By her knee, the crow that had led her to this place cocked its own head from side to side, first looking up at the queen's face then down at her hands. Opening its beak, it croaked out an insistent caw, demanding that something be done to help its mate. Another tear rolled down the queen's cheek.

"It is dead then?"

Olavine started at the sound of the woman's voice. Her first thought was that it must be Nelli come to check on her mistress, but the timbre was all wrong – deeper and richer than her young handmaiden's. Some unoccupied part of her mind struggled to place it. When it failed, she grudgingly lifted her eyes to see who had spoken. She did not bother trying to dry her face. Right then, she really didn't care who saw her tears.

She nodded once in answer to the pale, flaxen-haired woman who looked down at her from the bench of a snow-white sleigh. Olavine hadn't even heard the vehicle's approach, so lost had she been in her own thoughts. They drew her back again now, even as her eyes were drawn back to the lifeless body she continued to hold.

"It was your pet?" asked the woman.

"No," Olavine somehow managed to say.

"Did you kill it?" The stranger's voice was as cold as the crow's corpse.

"No!" Olavine found the idea so offensive that anger temporarily overrode her self-absorption. "Of course not! I care for these birds. They're like my children. I feed them, I treat their wounds when I can, but… but..." She shuddered through a sob. "I can only do so much."

"I see," said the woman, though perhaps her tone was no longer quite as harsh. "It is never easy to… lose someone." Olavine did not bother to reply. She didn't need to, for the woman continued speaking with an almost relentless detachment.

"And yet the lifespan of a wild crow is perhaps twenty years, is it not? If you have cared for them for any length of time, then surely this cannot be the first one you have outlived. Or if it is and if it has affected you this deeply, then perhaps you should consider a different diversion, for I can assure you, it will not be the last."

"There have been others," she conceded without looking up.

"Ah. So then this one was special to you in some way."

Olavine shook her head. "No. Not really. Except..."

This time she did raise her eyes, but not towards the stranger. Instead, she looked at the second crow that still waited expectantly by her knee for a miracle that would not come. In that instant, all the raw emotions that had been bubbling within her suddenly boiled over. Her quiet desperation would be silent no longer.

"I am old," she said through bitter tears. "Far closer now to the end of my days than to their beginning. I can feel it. Every day, I grow a little more tired. Every day seems just a bit shorter than the one before. I try to ignore it, to distract myself with other matters both big and small. Most of the time, I succeed. Most of the time. But not all.

"You must understand, it isn't death that I fear, at least no more than might any other poor soul. It is more that there are things I wanted to do. Things I didn't do. Things that I couldn't do and that I now know I will never be able to do." Her eyes returned to the unmoving form still cupped in her hands.

"I told you that these birds are like my children," she said, her voice becoming nearly as detached and dispassionate as her visitor's. "My husband and I have none of our own. We tried. For years upon years, we tried, but without success. We sought answers from physicians and midwives, specialists and charlatans. No suggestion went ignored, no matter how outlandish it might have seemed. Yet despite our considerable efforts, all came to naught. The years slipped by, yet I remained barren."

Had anyone stopped Olavine right then and asked her why she was pouring out her soul to a complete stranger, she could not have answered. Then again, perhaps the answer was already there in the question. This woman was wholly unknown to her and would soon disappear down the road, never to be seen again. Unlike her husband or her servants or anyone else in the kingdom, Olavine need not fear having to look her in the eye, reminded day after day of the painful truths that continued to spill from her lips unchecked. And now that they had started, she could not have stopped them even had she'd tried.

"Hope slowly turned into hopelessness. We both began to speak of it less and less, for it was easier to suffer the dull ache than to sharpen it again with words. Eventually, we just stopped talking about it altogether. Life has to go on, after all, and there's always so much to do. Besides, we had each other, and we _were_ very much in love."

"But just because you choose not to speak of a thing does not make it go away. You can ignore it all you want. You can try to hide it. You can pretend it doesn't exist. Yet it's still there. And when that thing is an idea, there is little you can do to destroy it. So it stayed with us. With us and between us. It might disappear for days or even weeks at a time until, when we least expected it… A child's laughter through the window. The sound of a newborn's cry as we strolled through the streets. The excited chatter of a group of women gathered around an expectant mother-to-be.

"I would see it in my husband's face. I would watch him close off, just a little. I knew that he saw the same in me as well. Of course, it would then take time for us to both open up again. Only now, as I look back at all our years together, do I begin to realize that none of those re-openings ever quite managed to match the closings that preceded them.

"Undoubtedly, that is why children are now merely one of the many things that we do not talk about. And why I come out to feed the birds while he remains behind."

Without conscious thought, her fingers had begun to stroke the dead crow's sleek, black feathers. "It's no one's fault, really. It happened so slowly that neither of us even noticed. But at my age, a woman begins to look back and take stock of her life, because you realize that it will not last forever. And then you realize just how painfully short it truly is, and how much of it you wasted because you weren't paying attention, and how that precious time is now lost forever and you will never be able to get it back again, and… and…"

Olavine's shoulders shook as she drew a shuddering breath. "And that," she said in a voice nearly drowned in sorrow, "is why I weep."

A silence as can only be found in the dead of winter settled then upon the scene. The pale woman in her long, fur-lined traveling cloak stared wordlessly at her accidental acquaintance, having no words of comfort to offer. A minute stole past in like fashion, with another following right on its heels.

Then the faintest of whispers shivered upon the still, frigid air. It could have been just the wind, or it could have been words that sounded very much like, "I wish..."

"What?" asked the Snow Queen, not unkindly. "What is it you wish, my dear?"

There was a pause, a hesitation pregnant with thought.

"I wish… I wish I could go back to the way things were when Ulrik and I first met. Things were so much simpler then. We were in love. Every day was fresh and new and exciting. The endless future stretched out before us, full of hope and happiness. And we would talk. We talked all the time, about everything – about anything – just so we could each feast upon the sound of the other's voice. Those were glorious days." She sniffled.

"I wish with all my heart that I could undo the others we so foolishly squandered."

Slowly and with great deliberation, the Snow Queen lowered the reins so that they dangled over the sled's dash panel. Rising to her feet, she stepped out onto the surface of the snowy road. For a long moment, she simply stood there, looking down at the figure that still knelt by the road's edge. Then she stepped forward, bent low, and pressed her lips to Olavine's brow.

"Your Majesty!"

The shrill cry was somewhat muffled by the thick blanket of snow that lay upon the world, but it carried far enough. The Snow Queen straightened and turned to look up the road from whence the sound had come. Another woman was running toward them, stumbling through the thick snow.

Without another word, the Snow Queen climbed back into her sled.

"Your Majesty, are you hurt? Is everything all right?" The newcomer was now at Olavine's side, every line of her body taut with panic.

"I'm sorry," Olavine said slowly, "but do I know you? That is, you seem to know me… and yet not. At the very least, you seem unfamiliar with the proper forms of royal address. You should only use 'Your Majesty' when addressing my mother, the queen. I am simply 'Your Highness.' Or Princess Olavine, if you prefer."

The servant, pale with fright, turned toward the sled. "Who are you?" she snapped as she climbed to her feet. "Who are you, and what did you do to Queen Olavine?"

"Who I am is of little consequence, for I see no reason to think that we will ever meet again. As for what I've done..." The Snow Queen took one final look at the older of the two women.

"I have given her a gift."

• • •

Practically every eye in the throne room was now fixed upon Skadi. Being who she was, however, she failed to present even the slightest outward reaction to the sudden increase in attention.

"Well," Kristoff breathed into Anna's ear, "you said she had a reason." Momentarily robbed of speech, Anna could only nod.

"Your Majesties," Elsa said, entering into the conversation with some urgency, "perhaps if you knew Skadi's history, you might better understand why she did what she did."

"That well may be," answered King Ulrik, his face inscrutable, "but now that she stands before us, I do believe that we cannot allow her actions to pass without taking appropriate action." So saying, he rose to his feet, lifting one hand as if in signal. Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff all tensed, wondering from where the blow would come.

The king dropped his arm, swept it across his midsection, and bent at the waist in a deep bow.

Queen Olavine's face broke into a broad smile upon seeing the stunned reactions of her guests, and her voice contained the twinkle of repressed laughter when she spoke. "You see, of course, that the Snow Queen – excuse me, _Skadi_ – did nothing more or less than grant me exactly that which I had asked for. It hardly seems fair to punish her for indulging my request, rash though it might have been at the time."

"But… but..." stammered Rohl. He had held his tongue throughout most of this exchange, but his trollish mind was now having great difficulty following this particular twist of human logic. To be fair, his human companions weren't exactly fairing much better.

"They say it must be an ill wind indeed that blows nobody any good," King Ulrik said as he lowered himself back into his throne. "Even a cold and wintry one may be just enough to change the fortunes of a foundering ship. We hope," and he turned his eyes to his queen, "that it might change ours as well."

"Wait, I'm confused," said Olaf, looking from one face to the next as he tried to make sense of things. "What does this ship of theirs have to do with anything?"

"It's only a metaphor, Olaf," Elsa explained patiently.

"Ohhh!" he replied brightly. "So not a very big ship, then."

Anna bent down, patted the snowman's back, and assured him, "I'll explain later, okay?"

"Okay," Olaf agreed in his usual happy-go-lucky way.

"So... what _are_ you planning to do then, Your Majesties?" Elsa asked of the King and the Queen. The two exchanged a long, meaningful look before Olavine answered.

"We are not entirely sure yet ourselves. However… we are talking about it."

"And on that note," Ulrik interjected just a tad brusquely. "While I do not begrudge your curiosity or any part of this conversation so far, these are not the reasons why I instructed my men to keep a watch for your return. There are matters of even greater urgency about which I very much wanted to speak to youbefore you returned to Arendelle. For you see, much has changed while you have been away, and not just in this kingdom."

The king looked deeply uneasy and shifted uncomfortably upon the thick cushions of his well-padded throne. He cleared his throat. "There is no easy way to tell you this, so you will have to forgive my bluntness.

"During your absence, a force of foreign soldiers managed to invade and capture the capital of Arendelle. They have since gone on to extend their grip across the entire kingdom. Even more worrisome is the man who leads them and who now sits upon your throne, Queen Elsa. From all that I have heard and seen, he is clever, cunning, and cruel. He shows not the slightest hesitation in resorting to terrible violence if he believes it will help him achieve his ends. He is not a man to be trifled with or to be trusted, as evidenced by the name he dared to claim for himself when he seized the crown."

Shock and horror registered on every face in the Arendellian party, except perhaps Skadi's. They stared at King Ulrik in disbelief and would-be denial. Elsa somehow found her voice first, though it was brittle and trembling when she finally managed to ask, "What name is that?"

When he answered, Ulrik's voice was rife with scorn. "He would have the world believe that he is King Ragnarr, returned to Arendelle to reclaim his rightful rule."

"Elsa!" Anna exclaimed, quickly ducking in to offer support as her sister's legs momentarily buckled.

"I don't understand," said Rohl, even more at a loss now than he had been earlier. "Who is this Ragnarr person?" But his question went unanswered as Elsa, leaning heavily on Anna just to retain a tenuous balance, turned instead to Kristoff.

"We may need you to accept that favor after all," she said in a voice that shook almost as badly as her knees.


	38. Meeting of the Minds

It has been said that the pen is mightier than the sword. This is true, at certain scales. Wars have been waged over the meanings of ancient words in revered texts. Entire governments have been brought low through revelations inked by a single hand. The hearts and minds of nations have been swayed by a brief bit of artful prose. The right words in the right place at the right time can change the world. How much power, then, might be said to reside within the confines of a humble postal carriage?

Kristoff couldn't have said. But had he been asked right then, he probably would have preferred the sword. Or an axe. Even a good club, really. At small scales – say a one-on-one battle with an invading soldier who doubtless has orders to clear up certain matters of succession by eliminating any other possible heirs to the throne – the pen tended to have a few distinct disadvantages.

Unfortunately, he was stuck with the postal carriage.

His battered but still beloved sled had been left behind when they'd departed Kråkeheim. After much discussion, Elsa had decided that stealth was their best strategy. There was little they could do to help Arendelle if they couldn't reach it. At the same time, there weren't many more effective ways to proclaim to the kingdom's usurpers that its rightful heir had returned than by her arrival in a sleigh completely covered in ice.

That was why they had asked of (and received from) King Ulrik the use of this mail sleigh, which was far less likely to turn heads. After all, it had been two months now since Ragnarr had seized the crown, and since he did honestly view himself as Arendelle's legitimate ruler, he could not hope to keep the kingdom isolated forever. No sovereign state could survive indefinitely without trade. So it was that sea traffic had begun to flow in and out of the ports again, though both cargo and passenger manifests were minutely scrutinized. Deliveries by land were likewise allowed through. Elsa very much hoped this would work in their favor.

The new vehicle served their desire for secrecy in another way as well. The rear compartment was enclosed, like a passenger coach. Ragnarr's men had doubtless been given descriptions of both Anna and Elsa. Skadi's resemblance to Elsa was strong enough to have caused confusion once before, so it was wise to keep her concealed as well. The reclusive nature of trolls meant that Rohl's appearance would certainly be cause for suspicion. And as for Olaf… Well, how many other walking, talking snowmen could you reasonably expect to see wandering around Arendelle?

As their driver, Kristoff had to remain outside, but he hoped that no one would be bothering to look too closely for a humble ice harvester despite his ties to the royal family. Besides, he'd bundled up under a thick woolen cap and scarf just to be safe. Though the use of reindeer as draft animals wasn't entirely unheard of, they were certainly less common than well-bred horses in such a role. But since there was no way Sven would have allowed himself to be left behind, that was the one chance they'd had little choice but to take.

It was by no means a perfect plan, but no one else had been able to come up with a better idea for getting them back home without being noticed. Then again, Kristoff felt it more than a little generous to consider this anything close to a plan. At best, it might be the first step in a plan. He fervently hoped that Elsa, Anna, and all the rest were busily assembling a few more of those steps while he and Sven tried to guess which roads and traces would be least likely to warrant regular patrols.

Since crossing the border into Arendelle, they'd so far managed to avoid any encounters. Perhaps that should have been encouraging, but to Kristoff's frazzled nerves, it really wasn't. The further they penetrated, the more anxious he became. It almost seemed like he could feel their meager supply of luck slowly draining away with each passing minute.

"Alright, buddy," he said, blowing out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and trying to sound more confident than he truly felt. "We're getting close to the Rennende River. Not many good crossings to choose from around here, but my gut says our best bet is the bridge up near the old mill. You know the one. What do you think?"

" _That mill hasn't been worked in years. Nobody goes up there anymore. Sounds like a good idea to me."_

"Okay, mill bridge it is then. And assuming we're able to get through there without incident, then we just have to finish making our way to the capital, find some way to sneak inside the siege walls without getting caught, drive the enemy forces out of the city, infiltrate the castle, take down Ragnarr and whatever men he'll have with him, restore Elsa to the throne, and then everything will finally be back to normal, give or take an additional Snow Queen. So basically no worries, right?"

There was a brief pause punctuated only by the muffled thudding of reindeer hooves.

"How did we ever get wrapped up in all this crazy stuff, Sven?"

Sven turned his head just far enough to be able to glance back at his friend. _"_ _You fell in love, remember?"_

"Oh sure, blame me. Like you didn't fall for her the instant she bought you a bag of carrots."

His eyelids drooping a little, Sven cocked his head to one side in a gesture that clearly read as a shrug. _"_ _The way to a reindeer's heart. What's your excuse?"_

Sometimes, Kristoff marveled at how often his talks with Sven ended up boxing him into a corner where he had no idea how to answer what were essentially his own questions. This time, all he could do was offer a little shrug of his own.

"Beats me, buddy. But you know I wouldn't have it any other way. Besides, I suppose we've never exactly been ones to lead boring, ordinary lives anyway, have we?"

Snorting in disgust at the mere thought of such a thing, Sven turned them off the path they'd been following and onto a narrower side trail that hugged the side of a fir-lined hill. The mill would be waiting for them at the top of the winding road. Beyond that… Well, best to worry about one obstacle at a time, Kristoff mused. It seemed like a sound strategy, apart from the fact that his mind refused to think about anything other than those selfsame obstacles.

Anna had never spoken to him about her grandfather, apparently because she'd only ever known the man as a face within a frame that had been hidden away high in one corner of the royal gallery. Elsa had never met him either, but their father had told her stories. From what little she'd had the time to explain to the rest of them, it seemed likely that the only reason a portrait of such a detestable man remained in the castle was because he happened to share the frame with King Agdar's mother, the late Queen Marguerite.

The chief difference between Ragnarr and Hans, Kristoff had decided, was that Ragnarr had been born with all the power than Hans had always coveted. Both men seemed to be too clever for anyone's good. Both only cared about themselves and their own ambitions, and neither would think twice about walking over anyone to get what they wanted. But Hans's lack of any actual power had forced him to hide his cruelty beneath a veneer of civilized charm, the better to slyly manipulate people until he could ultimately position himself to seize everything he had ever desired. Ragnarr had been unconditionally handed those same things on a silver platter and so had never needed to pretend to be anything other than exactly what he was.

Unfortunately, based on what King Ulrik had been able to tell of the capital's invasion, it sounded like Ragnarr had added deceit and guile to his repertoire during his exile. So perhaps the only practical difference that remained between the two men was that one had succeeded where the other had failed. If nothing else, Kristoff was certain that they both had at least one other thing in common. Should he ever get within arm's reach of either, his streak of nonviolence would be hard pressed to survive.

He was still having a hard time figuring out how that scenario might come to pass, though. What intelligence they'd received from Ulrik had been all too general. It wasn't like he had spies in Arendelle sending back detailed reports, after all. Indeed, he and Queen Olavine had been extremely fortunate that they'd left to see the trolls as soon as Elsa and Kristoff had departed. Had they left much later or traveled much closer to the capital, they might well have been entangled in the invasion themselves. As it was, they had managed to get in and out before Ragnarr's control had spread to the outlying areas of the kingdom, so that they themselves had only heard whispers of the unrest on their return journey to Kråkeheim

That meant that everything Ulrik now knew basically amounted to news that had managed to make its way across the kingdom's borders. As such, he hadn't been able to tell them anything substantial about the number of troops loyal to Ragnarr or their disposition throughout the kingdom. He lacked any details of how the local populace had responded to these events. So about all they really knew was that they were heading into an incredibly dangerous situation and that they were going in pretty much blind.

The sled rounded a broad turn as the trees around them thinned. Kristoff spotted the old and neglected timbers of the abandoned mill sitting higher up on the hill, dark against the snow. It hunkered beside the descending river like some aged beast, slowly dragging out the last drink of its life. The next bend in the road curved away from the worn-out building and led at last to the bridge that forded the river.

They didn't make it to the bridge.

"Whoa, Sven!"

It was not Kristoff who called out that order. Sven's head jerked up, turning this way and that in search of the voice that had. And although he didn't stop completely, he and the sled slowed to a bare walking pace in his surprise.

Kristoff rose partway out of his seat, ready to move in any direction as soon as he could figure out what was going on and where he ought to go. He was growing supremely tired of being ambushed, set upon, or otherwise waylaid by ominous strangers along the road, and his already tense nerves were now vibrating like so many plucked strings. Had their gamble that nobody would pay particular attention to a reindeer-drawn mail carriage just blown up in their faces?

A figure stepped out from amidst a dense clump of branches and bracken near the side of the road. His clothes were simple and plain, but so stained with weather and wear that their mottled coloring served as a surprisingly effective camouflage when set against the faded foliage. The coarse brown beard that hid the bottom half of the man's face looked like it was barely acquainted with a barber's shears, let alone a razor. Yet despite an overall haggard appearance, there was a smile on the man's face and a definite twinkle in his eyes.

"That is you, isn't it, Sven?" he asked as though hardly daring to hope that his guess might be correct. "So would that be Mr. Kristoff Bjorgman hiding behind all that knitting? If so, then you're both a sight for sore eyes." He took another step toward the carriage.

 _I'm just a postman,_ Kristoff reminded himself. _Nothing to see here._ "Sorry," he said, dropping his voice an octave. "You must have me mistaken for someone else. Happens all the time. But if you'll excuse me, I really need to keep going. This here mail isn't going to deliver itself."

For a brief instant, uncertainty flashed across the other man's face. Then his eyes narrowed shrewdly. "Really," he drawled as he advanced again. "Well, that's certainly a shame. We don't have all that much to offer in the way of hospitality in these parts, but I did figure I might be able to pull together a half-decent stew. I think we have some potatoes that are still good, a pheasant or two from our last hunt. And we have plenty of carrots, of course."

At the mention of that last ingredient, Sven noticeably perked up, and his tongue lolled out of his mouth in anticipation. _Someone doesn't quite grasp the concept of putting on an act to throw off suspicion,_ Kristoff thought dourly.

"But if you must be on your way, then I suppose it isn't my place to stop you. After all, I wouldn't want it to be said that any of Her Majesty's loyal subjects did anything to hinder the mail. Very important service, that. Though I do have to wonder who would be corresponding with the wolves."

"Beg pardon?"

"Well, it's just that nobody else lives anywhere along this road these days. Nobody except me and mine, of course, though I'm sure there's no one who'd particularly want to write to us. That's why the usual postal route goes down along the south way through Skalikke Pass. It's quite a bit easier to travel than this sorry old excuse for a road we have up here."

"Well, um… had to make a bit of a detour. Avalanche blocked the pass, you know."

"Really? I thought they'd cleared that up a month ago."

"Er… There was another. Yeah, another avalanche. Dangerous place, Skalikke. Especially this time of year. You know how it is."

"Hmm." The scruffy man scrutinized Kristoff across a distance that had narrowed considerably while they'd been talking. "Suppose you'd better be getting on your way then. You're well behind schedule if you've had to come this far out of your way. It's still a shame, though, that you aren't Mr. Bjorgman. I suspect he would have had some news to tell us, and hopefully good news at that. Heaven knows we could use some. The return of the queen and the princess..."

Kristoff watched the light in the man's eyes fade away even as his voice did the same. In its place came a sadness and a weariness that added years to the grizzled face. The man's gaze slid sideways to the empty spot on the bench beside Kristoff, as if in desperate hope that he had simply managed to overlook a missing figure that had somehow been sitting there this entire time. Then he looked back at the curtained windows of the carriage compartment.

"These are dark times," he said more loudly than was strictly necessary. "Arendelle is beset from within, and she is going to need all the help she can get if she is to be set free again. If such help were anywhere nearby, I suppose I would tell that help that at the very least, I am gratified to see that she has learned a lesson I once tried to teach her years ago. 'A good disguise must do more than just conceal; it needs to deflect attention and allow you to blend in.' Yes, if she were here, I would certainly tell her that she has demonstrated dramatic improvement in that regard."

The side door of the carriage burst open with such speed and force, it knocked snow off nearby tree branches. The blur that flew out was moving even faster when it collided with the man, all but knocking him over onto the slushy ground.

"Fritz!" Anna exclaimed, wrapping him in an embrace so tight, he couldn't even lift his arms from his sides to return the gesture. Still, a wide smile spread across his face, rolling the clock back to his right and proper age.

"Your Highness," he grunted.

"Oh!" She released him and took a hasty step back, reaching up to gingerly touch his shoulder. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to… I forgot all about your…" She winced in sympathy. "Sorry."

"I am the one who should apologize, Princess Anna," he insisted.

"You? Apologize?" Anna asked incredulously. "Whatever for?"

"First, for ever allowing you to be abducted in the first place," he said soberly. "And second, for my horrible breach of proper protocol."

"Protocol? What breach?"

Anna got her answer when Fritz reached out and scooped her up into his arms, drawing her close and holding her protectively against his chest. Though she hadn't expected it, Anna found the sensation to be eerily familiar. It was decidedly different from when Kristoff held her, and had almost nothing in common with the sisterly embraces she sometimes shared with Elsa. So when the proper comparison finally came to her, it nearly took her breath away. For it felt most like those times when she had let herself float within the warmth of her father's hugs.

And that was when she realized that Colonel Fritz Holberg was silently crying.

"It's okay," she found herself saying. "It's alright. I'm alright. We're all alright. We're back, and I'm so glad to see you on your feet again, Fritz. I was worried about you, too!" She laughed a little at the thought of their mutual anxiety society. "There's been so much to worry about and it isn't all over yet, but at least now we'll be able to face it together. You and me and Elsa..."

"Absolutely," Elsa agreed as she also climbed down from the carriage, though hers was a rather more stately descent.

Colonel Holberg disentangled himself from Anna and, schooling his features to his martial best, popped off a sharp salute. "Your Majesty!"

"And me!" Olaf added, bounding down behind Elsa. "And Kristoff and Sven and Rohl and Skadi..."

"Who?" Fritz asked.

"Oh! Well, this is Rohl," said Olaf, and he gestured to the troll who had come to stand in the carriage's doorway. "And that," he indicated the woman peering out from the shadowed interior, "is..."

A piercing whistle issued from between Fritz's teeth. Suddenly, men began appearing all around them, spinning out from behind trees or leaping up from where they'd lain concealed beneath the snow. Each of them held some sort of weapon, and all were intently focused on the sled's remaining occupant. Murmurs of, "It's her," or, "The Snow Queen!" could just be made out above the clatter of the ambush.

"Wait!" Elsa cried. She retreated, spreading her arms wide to block the open door.

"You know they cannot harm me," Skadi spoke softly from within.

"That's not the point." Elsa's next words rang out loud and strong for all to hear. "Yes, this is the woman who kidnapped my sister, but she is not your enemy. Not now; not anymore. Anna and I have made our peace with her, and I ask that you do the same. I will explain everything to you in due time, but right now, the true threat to our kingdom sits not in this carriage but upon the throne. If you would join me in seeing him removed and our people made safe once more, then I beg of you: lower your weapons. Stand down that we may stand together! For Arendelle!"

One by one, the men glanced uncertainly at each other before all ultimately turned their eyes toward their commander. The collective hesitation lasted only a moment longer before Fritz barked out his response.

"Well, what are you all waiting for? Did you not hear your queen? At ease, men." Weapons were immediately lowered all around, and the release of tension was almost an exhalation. The colonel bowed to Elsa.

"We have done what we could in your absence, Your Majesty, but without you here to rally the people behind the crown's rightful heir, we could only do so much. Many feared you would never return. More feared what would happen to their families if they dared oppose Ragnarr."

"I understand, Colonel," Elsa acknowledged, making sure that her voice continued to carry. "Fear has been both my enemy and my constant companion for longer than I care to remember. But I have other companions now who have each shown me what it is to be brave. I will not run from this fight. I do not know that I can hope to prevail on my own, but fortunately, I also know that I will not have to. With you and your men to aid us, I have every confidence that we will reclaim our kingdom."

A chorus of hurrahs and hear-hears rained down from the encircling troops, causing Anna to beam at her sister. Olaf applauded as best as his stick fingers would allow, while Rohl clapped him companionably on the back. Sven lifted his head and let out a throaty bellow, pawing at the ground in his eagerness to head into action.

"In that case, Queen Elsa, Princess Anna," Fritz said, and he swept his arm in a gracious gesture toward the old, abandoned mill, "allow me to welcome you to the headquarters of the Arendelle Loyalist Resistance."

• • •

The long trestle tables that took up most of the mill's largest room were full to capacity for dinner that evening. Riders had been sent to other nearby sympathizers to inform them of the sudden turn of events, and many had come in response to the glad tidings. Following months of anxious waiting, at last they would get to hear all that had befallen the errant travelers. Afterward, it was said, plans would be laid. Most could not have said which prospect was cause for greater excitement.

Despite the eager audience, Elsa had insisted that she first be caught up on everything that had transpired in Arendelle during her absence. As queen, she got her wish. Yet despite her desire to immediately begin strategic discussions with Fritz and the other most valuable advisors left to her, it was clear that some accounting of her own adventures would have to be given first.

And so the tale unfolded, passing from one voice to the next as she and Kristoff, Anna, and Olaf all filled in their own particular pieces. Even Rohl added a thing or two. Only Skadi did not contribute, but that would have been rather difficult for her since she was not actually in the room.

Elsa's speech to Fritz and his men had at best ended their open hostility toward the Snow Queen. It had not, however, engendered their immediate trust. The very air around them seemed to thicken with tension whenever Skadi drew near, and the last thing this meeting of would-be allies needed was a constant undercurrent of animosity running through it. That was reason enough for Elsa to allow vital planning to be delayed so that the tale of their adventures in the far north could be recounted. She very much hoped that understanding might lead to acceptance.

"Then we climbed into the postal sled and headed for Arendelle," Anna was saying, "hoping that we wouldn't attract too much attention that way, and now… Well, now here we are!" She paused, a slightly pained expression on her face, before she finally asked, "Any questions?"

A cacophony of voices indicated that yes, there were a number of those – so many, in fact, that they all piled together to form a nearly incomprehensible wall of sound. This was simultaneously surprising and yet painfully predictable. Anna and the rest had been constantly peppered with one inquiry after another throughout the telling of their story, often to the point where they were forced to divert so far out of the way that they lost track of where they'd left off in the first place. They'd each done their best to indulge everyone's curiosity, but it had already made the telling take three times as long as it should have. That more questions continued to pour in from all sides was only surprising in that it was hard to believe there could still be any left unasked.

As disconnected snippets managed to break through, an overwhelmed Anna tried to field them all at once. "No, we didn't have a chance to… Well, we would have, except... Yes, but that wasn't quite the way… Um, I'm not really sure if..."

Both Fritz and Elsa attempted to call some order to the proceedings, but neither was having much success at making themselves heard above the tumult. It was Rohl of all people who finally found a way to cut through the din. With everyone's attention focused elsewhere, he climbed off his stool and pulled himself up onto Kristoff's shoulder. Then, accompanied by more than a few grunts and exclamations of discomfort on both their parts, he mounted to the top of the big man's head. Taking a deep breath, he leapt into the air, curling himself into a ball as he did so. With a sound louder than any gavel, he slammed squarely into the middle of the table.

As he straightened back up again, staggering just a little from the impact, he was pleased to see that he'd at least managed to get the complete attention of the abruptly silent room.

"Let me see if I can simplify all this for you," he said caustically. "While still in her mother's womb, Elsa was given her magic (and maybe a second personality or something; I'm still not entirely clear on that myself) by Skadi, who I gather is the ancient Norse goddess of winter, because she was trying to find some way to forget the deaths of every single person she's ever cared for. So then Skadi comes back to Arendelle to try to collect Elsa once she's all grown up, but Elsa doesn't want to go, so she kidnaps Anna instead to try to force Elsa's hand. Everybody chases after her. They all have some adventures along the way, including one where they meet me. We all finally make it to her palace where we find that Anna's memories are gone, so there's a big fight and stuff. But it turns out that Elsa is able to restore Anna's memories and then she (or maybe that other personality of hers – like I said, don't ask) also makes it so that Skadi can forget, which is all she ever wanted in the first place. And it turns out that Skadi isn't really evil or anything, just misunderstood, which I gather is something that apparently happens a lot around these parts. So the girls both decide to forgive her and we all head back here, the bestest of friends and whatnot, only to discover that this Ragnarr, who's actually the father of the previous king and was himself king before that, has invaded Arendelle to take back the throne from his own granddaughter, because apparently you lot have some very strange ideas about how this whole family thing is supposed to work. Then, in an uncommonly good stroke of luck, the first people who choose to point weapons at us once we cross the borders happen to be friends instead of bandits or something even worse, and so now we're all sitting around here discussing details about things that are already over and done with instead of figuring out how, for the love of lava, we're supposed to save an entire kingdom from some violent, egomaniacal lunatic!"

Panting from pouring out so many words with barely a single pause for breath, Rohl turned to look at his wide-eyed friends. "Did I miss anything?"

"No, I think that about covered it," Kristoff allowed, equal parts stunned and impressed.

A silver-haired woman at the far end of the table cleared her throat. "Please forgive us, Your Majesty, Your Highness. It's simply a great deal to have to take in all at once."

"Besides," added a younger man with the stiff bearing of a soldier in the presence of superior officers, "you can't really expect us to trust this Snow Queen woman after everything that she's done! She kidnapped the princess! She attacked the gate wardens and the colonel, not to mention two innocent civilians! While you were gone, the only thing that worried us as much as Ragnarr was the thought that she might come back, and now here she is except we're supposed to accept her as an ally?"

"The ways of a soldier are not those of a diplomat," Elsa explained with careful patience. "You were well trained in the one while my father taught me the other. For a soldier, the difference between friend and foe is usually quite clear. Unfortunately, matters are rarely so simple when you wear the crown. Alliances are often fickle things where those whom you trust can suddenly turn on you in a heartbeat if it suits their interests. I know that all too well. But this also means that those we consider to be our enemies do not always remain so. Besides, you have seen only a portion of what Skadi is capable of. Wouldn't you rather have her standing with us than against us?"

The looks of stubborn skepticism that remained on all-too-many faces were enough that Elsa could not quite suppress a sigh. "But if you still cannot trust her," she offered in her most diplomatic tones, "then I ask you only to do this much instead. Trust me. Trust Anna. If you can do that, then I pledge to you right here and right now, you will not find that trust misplaced."

A murmur began to roll around the room, but it was cut short when Fritz rose smartly to his feet. "My trust and my life are ever yours, my queen," he announced with absolute conviction.

"Mine as well," affirmed the elderly woman who had spoken earlier, pushing herself up out of her chair.

There followed much scraping of furniture across the mill's rough floorboards as all around the table, chairs and benches were pushed back that their occupants might join in the show of solidarity.

"By your grace, Queen Elsa."

"My trust and my life!"

"The Conscience of Arendelle would never steer us wrong."

"Yours to command, Your Majesty."

"My trust and my life!"

"Well said."

"My trust and my life! My trust and my life!"

Fritz's words were picked up and repeated by one voice after another until they were on the verge of becoming a chant. Before they could take on a life of their own, however, Elsa raised a hand for silence, which fell with gratifying speed.

"Thank you. All of you," she said. "But as Rohl rightly pointed out, there are critical matters pressing upon us that I do not feel we should delay any longer. The task ahead will not be easy, and we will all need to work together as we have never done before if we are to succeed. Any scrap of information, any idea, any seemingly insignificant resource that we here possess could make the difference.

"And with that in mind, I would ask that you allow Skadi to join us for these discussions. As an asset, she is far from insignificant. She has lived longer than any of us here can comprehend. She has seen more, done more, and has abilities that Ragnarr's men would do well not to underestimate. My instincts tell me that she will have a vital part to play in whatever plans we may come up with. May I invite her in?"

"I'll go get her!" crowed Olaf, bounding toward the door without even bothering to wait for a response. Elsa made to call him back, but Fritz caught her eye and shook his head.

"Let her come," he stated matter-of-factly.

Elsa nodded gratefully. "Now," she said, sweeping her gaze around the room, "I see no reason why we shouldn't go ahead and get started. We have more than enough details that will need to be sorted out."

"Like how we're going to get into the capital without being noticed," suggested Kristoff.

"I've been thinking about that," Anna said eagerly, "and I have a different question. Are we sure we don't _want_ to be noticed?"

Elsa looked at her in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"Well, we've mostly kept a low profile this far so that we could get close to home again without tipping our hand and giving Ragnarr a chance to make any plans, right? But when we actually get back to the capital, what good will it do to continue hiding? I don't imagine any of us thinks we'll be about to get out of this without a fight, but by that point, you and Skadi should be able to take care of any soldiers who try to stop us."

"I'm not so sure about…"

"Oh, please. Skadi kept the entire Palace Guard at bay all on her own, and I saw you fight her almost to a standstill."

"I don't think she was really trying all that hard when…"

"My point is that you're more than a match for anything in Arendelle's armory. Even if they're able to sound the alarm, we'll be standing on their doorstep before they can possibly do anything about it. And I'll bet that once the people know you're back, they'll all be ready to march out and join us. I mean, just look at everyone who turned up here!"

"But even if that's true," Elsa countered, "I'd rather not put civilians in harm's way if we can help it."

"Which is the real problem with that plan," interjected Fritz, and all turned to look at him. "It's a major reason why we have been so limited in what we've been able to do on our own up until now. Ragnarr has filled the castle dungeons with most of Arendelle's remaining authority figures, along with a select group of others that he could only have chosen for the leverage they provide him. As we told you earlier, Ragnarr's second reign began with the death of Sergeant Vik, God rest his soul, and Ragnarr made it clear that he would not be above additional executions if order was not maintained.

"So far, all of our efforts have been little more than a nuisance to him. Your return would be another matter entirely. I don't doubt for a moment that he would use those hostages to compel your surrender, and he would need little to no warning to make good on such threats. Kai, Gerda, Vendel Dyrdahl, Josef Mikkelsen – they're all his prisoners."

"Josef?" Anna blurted out. "Why on earth was he arrested?"

"For helping us," Fritz admitted guiltily. "He, along with one or two others, served as our eyes and ears inside the castle. But there was a raid on one of our meetings, and he chose to stay behind so that the rest of us could escape. Since then, I'm afraid our other sources have all but dried up. They're too scared the same thing might happen to them."

There was a long quiet while this depressing news slowly sank in. It was an undaunted Anna, however, who broke the silence.

"Well then, we'll just have to rescue the prisoners first!"

Shocked looks from every corner of the room converged on the princess. "Forgive me, Your Highness," said a mustachioed man who wore his black hair slicked rakishly back, "but I'm afraid you don't fully grasp the situation. Ragnarr's strength may be stretched somewhat thin here in the outskirts of the kingdom, but the castle itself is heavily defended. The gates no longer stand open as they did when you left. They are barred and guarded night and day, opened only for his men and a select list of personnel deemed essential to palace operations. I daresay it is harder to enter the castle today than it was even during your father's time."

"Oh sure, but that's just the main gate."

Many puzzled looks were exchanged across the table. "If you're thinking about the old seaside delivery door," Fritz speculated, "there's no way to approach it without being spotted by the sentries on the wall. Even if we could get in that way, which I doubt, they would shoot us down before we got anywhere near it."

Anna's face was suffused with a giddy glow and her eyes were dancing. "What if I told you that I could get into the castle without ever having to get near the castle?"

The colonel looked from Anna to Elsa, who seemed for the moment to be as confused as he was. "Is this some new magic you've learned during your travels?" he asked doubtfully. Elsa shook her head in bewilderment.

Anna twisted in her seat to look at her sister full-on. "Not new magic," she said eagerly. "Just a very, very old secret."

There was a beat, and then understanding blossomed across Elsa's features. "Bolli!"

Anna nearly bounced with excitement. "I know, right? It's perfect! If we're careful, we can get in and back out again without anyone even knowing we were there. If we had a bit of a diversion to draw any soldiers out of the palace and into the courtyard or up to the walls, it would almost be easy!"

Elsa, picking up on Anna's infectious enthusiasm, began to smile despite the seriousness of their situation. "Hmm. Something tells me that two Snow Queens knocking on the front gates would be plenty diverting, wouldn't you agree?"

While the two sisters positively beamed at each other, the rest of those assembled continued to look utterly lost. "So," Fritz began tentatively, "are you seriously suggesting that you have a way to get into the castle, make your way down to the dungeons, and get all the way back out again without any of the guards noticing?"

Anna nodded vigorously, then gifted him with a rather guilty grin. "I know you remember that time when I was younger and tried to sneak past your men to get out of the castle. I'm sure you also remember telling me that, if you or your men ever caught me trying to sneak out again, you would tell my father and then immediately resign."

"Ye-e-s," Fritz agreed warily.

"Well," she said, suddenly unable to meet his eyes, "I did try again. In fact, I did more than just try. I did it! I found a way out of the castle! And I actually used it several times to slip out and explore the town, if only for a few hours. At least I did until… Well, let's just say it wasn't any of your men who finally caught me." Remembered embarrassment burned in her cheeks.

"Anna managed to find the tunnel that King Bolli used to escape the Fjellkuling siege," Elsa finished explaining. "It runs underneath the shield wall and opens up near the base of the furthest guard tower. When Bolli's forces reclaimed the capital, he used the same tunnel to sneak back into the castle and deliver a surprise attack. I think it's only fitting that it should be used in like fashion again."

Fritz considered the proposition. "That would certainly change things," he conceded, "but I can still spot one major problem with the plan as you've laid it out. Ragnarr is paranoid. He doesn't truly trust anyone. One of the things we learned from our palace informants, when we still had them, was that not even the guards assigned to the dungeons were ever given the keys to the cells. Presumably, Ragnarr is worried about what might happen if some loyalist sympathizer were to free all the dissidents at once. There are enough of them down there that they could certainly create a considerable amount of trouble.

"All of which is to say that Ragnarr either keeps the keys with him at all times or else locks them away someplace secure. Either way, just getting to the cells doesn't solve a thing if you can't actually unlock them."

"What about old Mr. Laugen?" Kristoff chimed in. "The locksmith? Or his son, Cedrik. We could get one of them to help."

"No, you couldn't," scoffed one middle-aged woman halfway down the table, "There's more courage in this breadcrumb than in that man's entire family." She sent the offending morsel flying with a disgusted flick of her finger. "There's no way you'd talk either of them into risking their necks like that, and even if by some miracle you did, they'd just panic at the first sign of trouble. It'd almost be a bigger risk than going in without them."

Fritz reluctantly nodded his head. "I'm afraid Sofi's right. The Laugens are good people, but neither father nor son were ever cut out for something like this."

Elsa frowned. "But Anna's right, too. If we can just figure out a way to make this work, it would solve so many of our problems. There _has_ to be a way!"

It was into the subsequent communal contemplation that the door swung open and admitted a skipping Olaf, Skadi trailing in a mere pace or two behind him. Most faces in the room swiveled to look in their direction, but only one lit up with inspiration.

"Olaf!" Anna was on her feet and craning around other bodies to better catch the snowman's eye. "How would you like to help save Arendelle?"

"Who, me?" he asked in startled surprise.

"Yes, you. In fact, I think it just might be a job that nobody else but you could possibly do."

Olaf straightened. Though lacking lungs and the ability to properly puff out his chest, he nevertheless managed to push his coal buttons forward in a way that still conveyed the same sense of great personal pride.

In her mind's eye, however, Anna was seeing something else entirely. She was crumpled on the floor of the palace library, every breath stealing away a bit more of what little warmth and strength remained to her. She remembered hearing a sound – the rattling of the door that Hans had locked behind him when he'd left. Barely able to so much as lift her head, she'd still tried to cry out for help, but her voice had been so feeble that she almost hadn't heard it herself. Then, to her utter astonishment and relief, the door had swung open to reveal…

"That's right," she said to Olaf with a fond lilt to her voice. "We really need your help – you and that wonderful nose of yours – to do a little bit of much needed picking. That is, if you're willing, of course."

"Absolutely!" Olaf proclaimed enthusiastically. Then…

"Wait, what about my nose?"


	39. Inescapable Consequences

Elsa led Skadi, Colonel Holberg, and a platoon of his best, most loyal men on a march toward the castle gates. It was a bold procession that would have drawn considerable attention under any circumstances. The small fact that they happened to be walking on water was doubtlessly helping to draw even more.

Strictly speaking, of course, it was only water until Elsa set foot upon it. Then it solidified into an island of ice, one that broke up behind the heels of the very last soldier. They were not bothering to conceal themselves even in the slightest, a fact they had made abundantly clear when they'd first entered into the protective circle of the shield walls. Together, Skadi and Elsa had conjured up broad, icy ramps that had allowed them to walk right over the northern barrier and down the other side. It had then been a trivial enough matter to immobilize the wall guards with fetters of ice, allowing Fritz and his men to collect their weapons. They had all continued down across the narrower of the two rocky arms that encircled the harbor. When they'd reached the water, they simply hadn't bothered to stop.

Figures could be seen lining the wharf ahead, and the crowd continued to swell as more and more people came to investigate the source of the commotion. Some were soldiers and some civilians, but all were intently following the group's unorthodox approach.

Anna had asked for a diversion. Elsa was determined to deliver.

"Halt!" cried an officer as the group drew nearer the docks. "In the name of His Majesty, King Ragnarr, you are ordered to surrender your weapons and yourselves!"

"In the name of _Her_ Majesty, Queen Elsa," Fritz replied, matching the other in both volume and authority, "I declare that you and your men are under arrest for impersonating members of the Royal Armed Forces of Arendelle!"

They were close enough now to see the muscle that twitched in the man's cheek as he took in these words. "You will not receive another warning!" he bellowed. "Stop where you are or my men will open fire!" As one, soldiers all along the wharf immediately brought their weapons to bear.

"Oh, by all means do." Skadi's tone could in no way have been considered a shout, yet it somehow still managed to carry to every man, woman, and child present. None of their party broke stride.

A look of grim satisfaction flared briefly across the officer's face before he schooled it back to rigid detachment. Raising one arm above his head, he swung it down until it pointed squarely at Elsa. "Fire!"

The air was split by a raucous lack of any noise whatsoever.

"I said fire!" he commanded again. When his second order brought similar results, he wheeled on the nearest hapless soldier and descended upon him, dispassion gone as his face contorted with rage. "Did you not hear me, man? What in the devil is wrong with you? Shoot them this instant!"

"I… I can't, sir," stammered the soldier as he struggled with his uncooperative weapon. "The firing mechanism is jammed."

"Jammed?"

"Yes, sir. With ice, sir."

The officer's head whipped around and his eyes sought out the figures that were now passing right below where he stood. None of them paid him the slightest attention, except perhaps for an amused quirk of the lip on the older of the two women.

"Don't just stand there like fools!" he shouted to his men. "Follow them! As soon as they set foot on shore, they're ours!"

The soldiers were a professional and disciplined lot, and they moved at once to obey. But most of them were also experienced enough to recognize a superior opposing force when they saw one. There was a hesitancy in their step and in the wary glances they exchanged when they passed one another. Nevertheless, they all gathered at the top of the last ramp on the wharf and waited, steeling themselves for the confrontation that was about to unfold.

"Sweet mother of…!" one of them exclaimed as the frozen little island suddenly exploded up out of the harbor, showering them with frigid water and finger-long chunks of ice. They all instinctively ducked as the bottom surface passed a scant handspan above the tops of their tall caps, then turned to watch as the airborne platform glided to a stop just above the bridge to the castle. It tilted slowly until its front edge lightly touched the flagstones, allowing its passengers to easily disembark.

The instant it was empty, the huge slab flipped back up into the air, spinning end-over-end like a tossed coin. When it slammed down again at the dockside end of the bridge, it landed edge-first and balanced there, seemingly precariously. Then came a creaking, groaning noise. A crack appeared at the very apex, began crawling downward, and quickly spread halfway down the ice. There it made two sharp turns, the fissure neatly bisecting the top and bottom halves. With a great grinding, the upper quarters slid sideways and then dropped heavily down to either side.

A thick, man-high wall now blocked all entrance to the bridge. With a sound like fingernails upon a blackboard, narrow openings appeared at spaces along the top of the wall. Solid ice somehow receded into the solid ice below, leaving behind a series of crenels. At each of these stood one of the loyalist soldiers, their weapons pointed outward.

The last of the shifting ice finally came to a halt, leaving behind a ringing silence and a stunned group of soldiers. Halfway along the bridge, Fritz pulled his eyes away from the sight to consider the two women who stood before him.

"If I may ask… Which of you did that?"

Both turned to look at him. One wore an enigmatic smile on her face. The other spoke.

"A lady never tells," Skadi deadpanned. Then she and Elsa returned their attentions to the barred gates before them.

In another time, trumpets might have been winded. In another place, a herald would perhaps have declared the challenge. But then and there, Elsa had to trust her own voice to ring out to those who had violated the sanctity of her home.

"I, Queen Elsa of Arendelle, have returned, and I find that some disturbing changes have been made in my absence. I come now to seek the man responsible for these changes. I demand to speak to Ragnarr this very instant."

"You will address His Majesty as King Ragnarr," one of the more brazen soldiers attempted to jeer from the rampart. The taunt would have been more effective had the tiniest of quavers not crept into the voice uttering it.

"No such title is due to a deposed monarch and a usurper of the crown, yet I will speak to him nonetheless. If he insists on being addressed by a title that is his by right, then I am willing to oblige, though he has done nothing to earn it. Therefore, you will tell Grandfather Ragnarr that his son's elder daughter awaits his presence at the gate."

This proclamation led to a flurry of agitated muttering amongst the guards on the wall. What it did not lead to was any apparent action to inform a superior or to send for reinforcements. It would have struck Elsa as almost insulting that her sudden appearance should engender so little action, except that her thoughts continued to be focused on drawing all attention away from Anna. She'd felt that she had gotten off to a promising start, but with this group, her actions so far seemed to be neither very diverting nor terribly effective. Odd how something as simple as the thickness of a wall could change a person's perspective, depending on whether or not they felt they were standing on the right side of it.

"I see no point in wasting words with this lot," Skadi proclaimed disdainfully. "You came here to speak to Ragnarr, did you not? If he will not come to us, then let us go to him and be done with it."

The last word had barely been spoken when a thunderous boom took its place. A battering ram of densest ice had materialized out of thin air and been sent slamming into the double doors that barred their way. The impact sent a tremor racing through the castle wall, causing those above to stumble as their feet shifted beneath them without first receiving proper consent. The sight of the ice column drawing back in preparation for a second blow was enough to end whatever deliberations they had been engaged in. A runner sped off along the raised walkway, practically pushed by his fellows in their haste to summon someone else onto whom they could foist the responsibility for dealing with the suddenly escalating situation. The ram's second impact caused the runner to stumble and nearly fall, yet once he recovered his balance, he took off like a professional sprinter with demons at his heels.

Elsa raised one eyebrow and turned, regarding Skadi as she stood beside her on the bridge. Before she could give voice to her thoughts, Skadi spoke her own mind.

"You will have your chance to waste as much time as you wish with pretty words and brave speeches," she explained bluntly. "Once we have drawn all attention to us, then by all means, talk them into their graves if you can. But we have to get their attention first before we can hope to hold it, and the sooner we do that, the better for all. Do you not agree?"

"Oh, absolutely," Elsa conceded. "But those are my own doors you're trying to bash in there, remember? I'd rather not leave them in splinters if at all possible."

Skadi sniffed. "Doors can be replaced. Besides, I thought you preferred to leave them open anyway."

Elsa could see there was little point in arguing the matter further, especially when she recognized that Skadi was right. Diplomacy in this situation was unlikely to be useful as anything more than a stalling tactic. Try as they might, she and the rest of the resistance leaders had been unable to devise a strategy to oust the invaders that didn't involve some application of force. Even her father had only managed to banish Ragnarr after besting him in a duel, meaning he would doubtless be warier this time. The likelihood that they would be able to remove him without some form of collateral damage seemed infinitesimally small. If the palace gates were the only loss they suffered, they would be fortunate beyond imagination.

Meanwhile, there was little she could do now but wait to see who would respond to the runner's summons. It was a struggle to hide her impatience, and she couldn't keep from counting the seconds and worrying that each might be the one that would result in Anna's discovery. In that respect at least, Elsa envied Skadi and her effortless poise. As usual, the Snow Queen's inscrutable face betrayed little. She could just as easily been preparing for bed as for battle.

Seeking a measure of reassurance wherever she might find it, Elsa glanced back over her shoulder again at Colonel Holberg and those of his men who were not part of the rearguard at the far end of the bridge. The colonel gave her a curt nod, but beyond that, the soldiers' faces betrayed nothing more than a grim determination to see their mission through. Their eyes were trained upon the castle heights, picking out their opposite numbers and tracking their every movement.

Proper uniforms had been found for Fritz's men and made as presentable as time had allowed. It was unnerving that both sides in this conflict felt they had the right to outfit their side in Arendelle's official military regalia. Even worse, it opened up the risk of deadly confusion when and if hostilities began in earnest. For that reason, Elsa had personally approved and applied alterations to all the loyalist uniforms, giving them a singular mark of distinction that set them apart from those they hoped to drive out of the capital. Brilliant blue-white snowflakes now shown upon each man's shoulders like epaulets, declaring in no uncertain terms where their allegiances lay.

That uncertainty had apparently all fallen to Elsa instead, and its dreadful weight was now turning her stomach sickly sour. She might have spent years across the chess board from her father learning to think strategically, but a piece lost in chess would always rise again for the next game. Here, real lives were at stake, and she felt personally responsible for every last one.

She caught herself clenching and unclenching her fists, a nervous habit she had developed when she'd been much younger. Back then, it had been an almost unconscious way to feel the reassuring pull of her gloves against her skin. Eventually, as she'd grown older, she had managed to scrape together enough courage to venture out of her room with some regularity and join her father in his study to learn from him while he worked. It was during those years that her occasional fist clenching had given way to the hand-wringing she had carried with her into adulthood.

She couldn't remember the last time she had fallen back to this much older behavioral quirk, and her immediate inclination was to put a stop to it. That only lasted a second though, because that was when she recognized the difference. That was when she registered the way her fingernails now bit into the palms of her hands. That was when she felt the tension rising halfway up the muscles of her forearms. That was when she realized that these were not the weak, impotent gestures of a frightened little girl.

These fists she was making were the physical manifestations of a grown and powerful woman's anger. Anger at Ragnarr for his prideful arrogance and ambition. Anger at fate for allowing so many lives to be put in danger. Anger that, so long as the hostages remained trapped in their cells, she would be forced to hold back instead of demonstrating to one and all the error of underestimating what quiet strength slept in Arendelle.

"So," boomed a deep, stentorian voice that snapped her back to the here and now, "her prodigal highness has returned."

Elsa found that her nervous habit had stopped all on its own. Now her fingers were curled into tight, vibrating fists at her sides that showed no inclination of opening again any time soon. "You of all people should know the proper way to address a queen, Grandfather." The last word lashed out like an obscenity.

Above the gates, Ragnarr's towering form stepped forward, advancing from the overhanging shadows and into the broad light of day. Absently, Elsa noted that the walkway atop the wall had grown far more crowded all along its length. As they had hoped, Ragnarr had brought along reinforcements. Were these all his men? Had their diversion been enough?

"Queen?" he asked caustically. "I am afraid you are mistaken. My dearest Marguerite passed away many long years ago now." His mouth twisted maliciously. "Arendelle has no queen."

Then, as abruptly as it had appeared, the look of nearly maniacal amusement vanished from Ragnarr's face, to be replaced by one of shock, horror, and unbridled rage.

"You!" he roared, jabbing an accusing finger downward. "Witch! Demon! Vile harpy!" Flecks of spittle flew from his mouth with every word. "How dare you! Why? Why would you return here, now, and in the company of this… this… this woman?"

A supremely unimpressed Skadi regarded him coolly. "Because I was invited," she answered, "which is more than can be said for you."

"No man needs an invitation to return to his own house," he shouted back, "let alone a king!" His eyes had grown wide, his teeth ground together in a seemingly permanent snarl, he was hunched over the battlement, and his massive shoulders heaved with every breath. He looked every inch the madman, a fact that slowly seemed to dawn on him as well.

With what was obviously a tremendous effort of will, Ragnarr straightened, slowed his breathing, and pressed his lips together into a tight, thin line. Then, without taking his eyes off the two women below, he tipped his head back in a way that made it clear his next words were meant for all to hear.

"Did I not tell you?" he cried out. "Did I not warn you? Did I not say that the one they call the Snow Queen is also possessed of the power to manipulate minds? See now what has happened – the worst of our fears come back to doom us all! That woman you see before you is no longer your beloved Elsa. No! She is merely the thrall of the Winter Witch! They have returned together, master and minion, to conquer Arendelle and turn it into a kingdom of eternal ice and snow!"

"Your folly is showing, Grandfather," Elsa called back. "I am the same person I have always been, though maybe a bit braver than I once was. And based on the stories Father told me of you, you have not changed either. You remain a cruel and heartless man who never thinks about anyone but himself, except perhaps when considering how best to use others as stepping stones. For that reason, I _will_ retake my kingdom and my crown, for I will not allow Arendelle to tremble under your tyranny a second time!"

"Heartless, am I?" Ragnarr scoffed. "I daresay my blood flows hotter than yours, especially if yours has been sullied by that thing beside you. I can't help but wonder, brave Elsa: where is your sister? Where is Princess Anna? That was why you left Arendelle in such haste, and so poorly defended, was it not? To rescue her from this woman? Yet here the two of you stand while your sister is nowhere to be seen. Was she already dead by the time you reached her? Or do you even remember her now? Was the pain so great that you begged to be allowed to forget her? Was that the first foothold into your mind that you offered up to this foul filth?"

"You fling slander after slander at me to try to tarnish my name in the eyes of my people," Elsa said, fighting to maintain a calm demeanor in the face of Ragnarr's viciousness. "Yet all you do is demonstrate exactly how base and twisted your own mind actually is. Of course I remember my sister. I brought Anna back to Arendelle safe and sound, as these men who stand with me can attest. And that is precisely why she is not here now. After all I went through to rescue her, did you think I would bring her anywhere near you – a man with so little self-control that he wantonly beat his own son when he was just a boy?"

"Why should we trust your word, or that of any in your company?" Ragnarr shot back. "No doubt you have all been corrupted by her malign magics! How can any of you possibly claim to know your own minds? How can you be certain that your memories are your own and not those she has seen fit to give you? Would you even know that anything had changed? Can you possibly believe that your mind is untouched when she could have just as easily have made you forget that she had ever touched it? Can you ever trust your own thoughts again?"

Ragnarr's voice had become progressively more ragged with each question, and he seemed to have forgotten that he was attempting to play to a broader audience. Elsa stared at him in rapt fascination as she watched his face growing haggard and haunted before her very eyes.

"How can you know what's real anymore?" he continued. "How can you know which ideas are truly yours? You cannot. It's not possible. You can never know. You wouldn't even know that you couldn't know. _I_ wouldn't know except… except she told me that..."

His words ground to a ponderous halt, as though his train of thought had simply run out of steam. He stared at Elsa and at Skadi, blinking stupidly like a child only just awoken and struggling to reconcile his surroundings with the dream he had left behind. Then reality began to seep into his senses again. His face hardened, his posture stiffened, and the deadly fury rekindled behind his eyes. Hatred rolled off of him in waves so palpable, the men closest to him noticeably pulled away. He drew himself up to his full and considerable height, looking for all the world like a rearing bear.

"But none of that matters," he growled, cementing the feral imagery. "Arendelle is mine, as it should be. As it always should have been. You cannot have it. And you cannot touch me." Still without breaking eye contact, he turned his head to blindly address whatever soldier stood closest at hand. "Go and fetch one of the prisoners," he said, handing the man a ring of keys newly withdrawn from his pocket. "The old woman, I think. I believe she was once close to the princess. Let us see if any warmth of affection still remains between them, or if naught but ice now flows through the veins of the Snow Queen's sad little puppet."

"This is between you and me, Ragnarr," Elsa shouted. "Or are you such a coward that you must hide behind a shield of innocent lives in order to feel safe?"

"Between you and me? You came neither alone nor unarmed. And as you have so ably demonstrated, you bring with you abilities that I certainly cannot match. When facing such an obvious disparity in power, only a fool would surrender what advantages remain at his disposal. If nothing else, my dear Elsa, you should know that I am neither coward nor fool. No, I am not.

"I…

"Am…

"King!"

• • •

"I am never going to hear the end of this."

Kristoff, Olaf, Anna, and Rohl stole toward the base of the southern shield wall. They'd managed to slip into the capital undetected using a particularly narrow and well-hidden pass that Kristoff had stumbled upon years earlier, but they had left that concealment behind a while ago. Only scattered clumps of evergreen trees now provided them with any cover to speak of, and those were not nearly enough for any of their comfort.

"It'll be fine, Kristoff," Anna said in a low voice as she glanced up at the nearest guard tower. Its looming presence marked where the mighty siege wall surrendered its duty to the rocky mountainside. It was also the location from which their approach was most likely to be spotted.

"You say that, but you don't know the way Sven can carry a grudge. Considering how angry he was at being left behind, he might not speak to me for months after this."

Rohl snorted. "Guess you'll just have to get used to a lot of one-sided conversations then, won't you? Oh, wait..."

"I said it'll be fine," Anna reassured him again. "Nothing that a bushel of carrots won't fix."

"Do you think there might be one left over?" Olaf asked, fingering his own protectively. "Just in case, you know, something were to happen while I was…"

"Sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong?"

Anna sighed in exasperation. "Rohl, please stop teasing the boys. And Olaf, rest assured that if anything happens, I'll see to it you get first pick."

The troll almost choked on his laughter. "So you're saying you'll let him pick his own…?"

"Shh! Quiet, Rohl. We're here!" 

All thoughts of levity vanished as the quartet stared at the blank gray stone before them, now and then glancing upward to catch a glimpse of the stone tower that surmounted it.

The exit (or, from this direction, entrance) to Bolli's tunnel was not to be found on the great wall itself. Rather, a short side-passage split off near its end and ran out through this rocky hillock. The door had been ingeniously fashioned out of the very stone of the mountain. Anyone who didn't know what they were looking at would see nothing more than a man-sized boulder mostly embedded in the rock face.

Then again, the same could also be said for some of those who did know what they were looking at.

"It's a rock," Olaf observed.

"And what's wrong with rocks?"

Anna allowed herself to ignore Rohl this time, thankful that he at least had enough sense to keep his banter to a whisper. Besides, she had other matters to attend to. Her eyes were busily scanning the seam along the left edge of the door. It had been many years since she'd last stood on this spot, and her perspective then had been that of a young girl. Things looked strangely different now, and she was having trouble locating the feature that she had expected to find.

"Something wrong?" asked Kristoff, coming to stand beside her.

"I'm trying to find the crack," Anna explained as she bent forward to look more closely. "You know, the one that ought to let us lift the bar that holds the door shut? I thought it should be about here, but I can't find it." She frowned in consternation, then tugged off her mittens and began poking around with one finger. "I just don't remember there being all this moss here. You'd have thought it would have had plenty more time to grow _before_ I first used the door than in the few years since."

"This door?" Kristoff asked. "You mean the one that you pushed open from the inside, tearing any moss clean off before you would've had a chance to see it?"

Anna's finger momentarily paused in its probing. When it resumed, its attack was noticeably more aggressive. "Which is why I'm trying to clear it all away, obviously."

"Obviously," Kristoff agreed with an affectionate smile. "But since we're in a hurry, might I suggest a better tool for the job?" Unslinging a borrowed pack from his back, he fished around inside until he withdrew a small pocket knife, which he proffered to Anna. She took it without a word, though she let her eyes express her gratitude, and resumed her determined attack.

"Found it!" she announced soon thereafter, and she pointed with the tip of the knife at the narrow gap she'd managed to clear. Kristoff had to squat down to get a good look at it.

"Hmm. Good thing I brought the skinniest crowbar we could find," he said. "They didn't leave any extra room, did they?"

"I'm sure they didn't want just anybody to stumble across it." With no task now distracting her, Anna kept glancing up toward the tower and the wall above them. "But you will be able to lift the beam, won't you?"

"Only one way to find out. Stand back." And with that, he jammed the flat end of the pry bar into the bottom of the crack. After wiggling it a bit, he seemed satisfied that it was in as far as it was going to go. Then, using the bottom lip of the opening as a fulcrum, he pushed down on the free end of the metal rod.

He pushed again.

Grunting despite himself, he pressed his entire weight down onto the lever.

"And you opened this yourself when you were how old?" he asked, panting slightly from the exertion.

"Eleven," Anna answered. "Of course, I was on the other side then, and I was pushing up instead of down, and I didn't have a metal bar for a lever or anything, but… Oh, no!" Her hands flew up to cover her mouth.

"Anna," Kristoff said, giving her a worried look, "this is not a good time for oh-noes. What is it?"

Her hands crept higher until they nearly covered her entire face. "Mmph mumble mhn," was all that Kristoff could hear of her reply. Reaching out, he wrapped his fingers around her wrists and gently but firmly pulled her hands out of the way.

"Anna..."

Her head was bowed, guilt written in every line of her face, but her eyes still managed to flick up to meet his. "The locking pin," she said quietly.

"Locking pin. There's a locking pin? Where?"

"I… I don't know exactly," she said, panic already beginning to creep into her voice. "It ran through the crossbeam and into the door itself. I assumed it was put there to keep anyone from sneaking in who found the door from the outside. Only it had been so long ago that I… I forgot all about it. Until just now." She grimaced at the magnitude of her oversight.

"Right," Kristoff said, taking a deep breath as he tried to think. "Right. Do you remember how far in from the edge of the door this pin was?"

"I'm… I'm not sure." Anna turned her eyes to the boulder, clearly trying to dredge up that particular detail from pools of memory that had all but washed the pin's existence away in the first place. Finally, she pointed. "There, I think." She bit her lip. "Or maybe there." And her finger moved several inches to the right. "Or was it…?" She turned frantic eyes up to Kristoff's face. "I don't know."

"Oh, for pebble's sake! Gimme that!" Rohl marched straight up between them and grabbed the crowbar out of Kristoff's hand. Then he stood there, impatiently tapping one foot as he looked up at the man. "Well?" he said irritably.

Kristoff, obviously at a loss, blinked back. "Well what?"

Rohl swung the bar about like an instructor's pointer and jabbed it at door. "I'm not exactly tall enough to reach that high, am I?"

Kristoff looked over Rohl's head at Anna, who looked back just as blankly and gave a small shrug.

"Crystal, metal, rock – they all have their own unique sound," Rohl said in exasperation before pointing to his large, trollish ear. "If I can just get up there and get a good listen… No, not like that!"

Kristoff had started to reach down and pick up the troll, but Rohl had shooed him off with a swipe of the crowbar. "Well then," Kristoff asked, his own frustration growing, "what exactly is it you want me to do?"

"Not much. I just need a bit higher place to stand, that's all."

Both his shoulders and his face fell, but that was the sum total of Kristoff's protest. Getting down on his hands and knees, he allowed Rohl to climb up onto his back. Soon thereafter, he heard the tapping of steel on stone.

"There," Rohl announced after perhaps a minute. "That's the spot."

"You're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure."

"Fine. Mark it, then get off." There followed a couple solid bangs that Kristoff fervently hoped wouldn't travel very far, then he felt Rohl's weight disappear. Standing, he allowed himself time for a single stretch to free up his muscles. Then he plunged back into the pack and pulled out a third piece of gear. Some might have questioned why he would even have bothered to bring it on this particular mission, but he'd felt half-naked without one ever since he'd lost his to Milda's bandits. With one nervous look up at the tower nearly hidden directly above him, he hauled back and brought his arms around in a mighty swing.

The pickaxe smacked right into the center of the shallow divot Rohl had marked.

He caught Anna wincing just a little with each impact, saw her upward glances turn into a solid stare toward the tower. None of them said a word, but it was clear that they were all waiting in dread for the sounding of an alarm. Kristoff tried to vary his strokes, knowing that a steady, rhythmic noise would be even more suspicious, but there was little he could really do to hide the distinctive _chink, chink_ of metal on rock.

From their vantage point, it was just possible to see the spires of the castle below, but the trees and buildings that dotted the hillside blocked all view of the front gates. They could only guess how much time they still might have. Had Elsa, Skadi, and the rest made it to the castle yet? How long could Elsa hope to hold Ragnarr's attention once they did? They had been given precious little time in which to accomplish the rescue and could ill afford to waste a single minute, yet that's exactly what they were now being forced to do.

 _Chink. Chink, chink. Chink. Chink. Clink! Clunk._

Clink? Clunk!

Anna lowered her eyes to Kristoff's surprised face. Following his gaze, she saw the pick-end of his axe buried in the stone right up to where it joined the handle. The two exchanged hopeful looks. Then Kristoff wrestled the pick out of the hole, dropped it to the ground, and snatched up the crowbar that Rohl handed back to him.

"Fingers crossed," he suggested – advice which Anna immediately followed. So did Rohl. Even Olaf did his best, though his two fingers had to come from separate hands.

The crowbar slid into the gap. Kristoff drew a deep breath, then pressed down on the free end. The lever swung easily. He immediately changed direction and pushed the bar toward the rock face. The gap widened. The door opened.

He nearly dropped the steel rod onto his foot when Anna launched herself into the air, wrapped her arms around his neck, and planted an excited kiss hard against his cheek.

"As much as I enjoyed that," he said with a slightly foolish grin, "we'd better get going. I'm not sure how much time we have left, but it's a lot less than it was."

"Oh, right," Anna said, acting suitably chastened. Then she turned to look through the doorway to the tunnel beyond. "Oh. Right." Unlike the locking pin, she hadn't exactly forgotten this particular aspect of her journeys beneath the wall. It would be more accurate to say that she'd been trying hard not to remember.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Rohl asked as he strode forward. He was holding several small, glowing crystals in his hand.

"Um, that really isn't very much light," Anna pointed out.

"More like that's a whole lot of dark," he replied, "but we're in a hurry. You can waste time lighting the torches if you want, but we'll be able to move faster with these. No flames trying to blow back in our faces, and no chance of these going out on us. Besides, they should still be plenty to see by. Trust me. I've spent half my life crawling around tunnels, and most of them were a lot nastier than this. These will do the job."

Anna peered once again into the gaping darkness that seemed positively eager to swallow her whole. At the same time, her body seemed to have gotten confused about a simple thing like water distribution. Her mouth had gone dry while her hands were suddenly clammy.

"Anna?" Olaf asked, toddling up beside her. "Are you alr-"

"Fine," she answered, doing her very best not to hear the squeak in her own voice. "Everything's fine. Or it will be, once we've freed the prisoners. So why are we just standing around? Let's go." And with that, her legs carried her forward into the inky blackness, refusing to give her brain the chance to reconsider.

• • •

When you've known someone your entire life, when you've been bonded by friendship through both happiness and heartache, when you've shared experiences that in many ways were at least as intimate as anything you might have shared with a spouse, you almost inevitably find that you've also attained a certain level of hallowed comfort in each other's presence. It can be a strange thing and one that most clearly manifests itself in the silences. Together, you find that you've moved beyond the need to fill the void with idle chatter. The other's voice becomes unnecessary; their mere proximity is enough to make you feel at home.

But when you've spent weeks on end locked in a dungeon cell together, and your shared isolation from the rest of the world has left you with precious few new topics worth exploring, you may just take whatever slim scraps of conversation you can find.

"It's getting close to lunchtime."

Kai turned his head to look out the narrow window and attempted to gauge the time of day. "Yes," he agreed, "I suppose it is."

Gerda shifted slightly on the bench beside him, despite ample empirical evidence that no change in position would convince the slabs to become any more comfortable. "I wonder what Hille will bring us today."

"Same thing as yesterday, I suspect."

"Hmm. I wouldn't say no to a nice plate of braised lamb shanks right about now," she mused dreamily, "simmered with tomatoes, garlic, rosemary, red wine. And served with a generous helping of potatoes, of course."

"I'd settle for a couple of decent sandwiches," Kai counter-offered, "with an extra tip for the waiter if the meat is still nice and hot."

Gerda considered this. "What kind of meat?"

"Can't say it would matter all that much."

"Oh, well now you're just baiting me. Telling a cook that the meat doesn't matter!"

"Fine. Salmon then."

"Why salmon?"

"Because if I'm baiting you, then we might as well use it to catch some fresh fish."

Gerda laughed… until her laughter gave way to a thin, dry cough. Patting her back, Kai pulled the thin blanket up higher about her shoulders. "Soup it is, then," he decided. "Some hearty chicken broth would do you a world of good right about now."

"A soft mattress and a warm quilt would do even more."

"I'm afraid we don't have either of those at the moment," said a man's voice from out in the corridor. There was a rattling at the keyhole followed by click. The door swung open.

"...but we'll see what we can do once we get you out of here."

"Kristoff!" Gerda exclaimed. "And Olaf!" She gasped. "Does that mean…? Did you find…?"

"Right here!" Anna poked her head out from behind Kristoff's bulk.

"Princess Anna!" Kai shot to his feet before helping a somewhat shaky Gerda to stand as well. "What happened? Are you all right? Is Queen Elsa with you as well? What about Ragnarr? Is he…?"

"Long stories, short on time," Kristoff interrupted. "Let's just say we need to get you and the rest of the prisoners out of here as quickly as possible, and we're not exactly going to be able to walk straight out the front gates. We have a way, but it isn't the easiest in the world. Think you can manage it?"

Gerda straightened her shoulders and jutted out her chin. "I have a cold, not a consumption," she declared defiantly. Then she looked past him to Anna and smiled. "Just tell us what you need us to do, dear."

"Kai," the princess began, "you know the little parlor up on the third floor that Papa sometimes used?"

The steward blinked in surprise. "The one that used to be his mother's?"

"That's the one. We've unlocked about half the cells. Do you think you can lead everybody up there that we've freed so far? We left a guard behind – a troll named Rohl – who can show you how to get out. Be careful, but hurry. We think all of Ragnarr's men are out of the palace right now, but we don't know how much longer that will last."

"Of course, Your Highness. Come along, Gerda." And with that, the pair squeezed past their rescuers and began to calmly but urgently herd the rest of the milling prisoners back up the dungeon passage.

"Ready to keep going, Olaf?" Anna asked solicitously.

The snowman, nose in hand, looked with no small regret at the many thin scratches that already marred its tip. Still, he wasn't about to let anyone say that he hadn't done his part to help his friends. "Ready when you are," he answered.

They continued on from cell to cell. By this time, most of the captives had pieced together what was happening and were waiting by their doors with grateful smiles and warm words of thanks. A few couldn't resist following Fritz's example, committing their own minor breaches of protocol the moment they were set free. One such enthusiastic reception came in the shape of Josef Mikkelsen.

"Princess Anna! You're back! You're alive!" His hug was so swift and so fierce, her feet briefly left the ground. Just as suddenly, the stablemaster became aware of his transgression, and of the broad-shouldered man standing beside them with his eyebrows raised in questioning appraisal. "Oh, ahem. Sorry," he said, setting Anna back down and tugging at the hem of his rumpled tunic.

"It's okay," Anna smiled. "I'd glad to see you too, Josef. But we'll have time for catching up later. Right now..."

"Yes, of course," he said. "Of course. There should only be two cells left, right?"

There were. And in the very last cell – the darkest and least hospitable, lacking even a window to let in the day – they found Vendel Dyrdahl. His usually impeccable clothing was wrinkled and torn. Splotches and stains showed where food had fallen as he'd done his best to eat his meals in the little light available to him. His hair hung greasy and lank, and though he looked up when Anna's face peered in through the door's small window, it seemed to take him an inordinately long time to register what he was seeing.

"Your… Your Highness," he mumbled as he rose unsteadily to his feet.

"We'll have you out of there in a jiffy, Vendel," Anna reassured him. "Last one, Olaf," she said, looking down at him with an encouraging smile.

He nodded. Then, with practiced care, he reached up and slid the carrot into the lock. He jiggled it. He twisted it. There was a click... followed almost immediately by a crisp _snap_.

As Kristoff hauled the door open, Olaf screwed his nose back into place and looked despondently down its length, now a good inch shorter and considerably less pointy.

"I'm sorry, Olaf," Anna said, placing a comforting hand on the back of his head. "We'll get you a new one really soon. An even better one. I promise." Olaf only nodded while continuing to stare at the place where the tip of his nose had so recently been.

"Come on," Kristoff said, holding Dyrdahl by the elbow. He felt like he needed to guide the man, who otherwise seemed completely lost. "This has all taken way too much time."

"Right," said Anna. Turning, she began to make her way back up the corridor, giving out hasty instructions as she passed.

"We have a way out," she told them, "so everyone just needs to follow me. Try to keep quiet, but we need to move as fast as we can. If any of Ragnarr's men spot us… Well, let's hope they don't. The quicker we can be, the less chance they'll have. Everybody ready? Okay, let's go." So saying, she began to lead the small crowd up the narrow stone stairs to the palace proper, with Kristoff and Olaf bringing up the rear.

They had managed to traverse the first floor and were just starting up the great spiral staircase when the angry shouts overtook them.

"The prisoners! They're escaping! Halt, in the name of King Ragnarr!"

"Run!" Kristoff shouted to Anna and the rest. "I'll hold them off." He grabbed a long pike from one of the suits of armor arrayed against the wall, then swung it around to point at the advancing soldiers.

"You won't be alone!" Josef grabbed a second spear and joined Kristoff. Together, they stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the foot of the stairs, barring the way.

"Josef!" Anna cried. "Kristoff!"

"Go!" both men shouted in unison.

"Don't worry, we'll be right behind you," Kristoff added, climbing backwards onto the first step while continuing to brandish his weapon at the knot of guards.

Anna took one last look at the two men, then at the weary and bedraggled group strung out on the steps below her. Most of them were older, and their long imprisonment had not been kind to already stiff joints and muscles. Even so, they'd all somehow found it in themselves to pick up their pace now that secrecy had been rendered moot, many passing her on the stairs in their haste. Making up her mind, even while feeling sick to her stomach, she turned and hurried up to the third floor, urging everyone along as she went, then guiding them to the parlor where freedom awaited.

A few minutes later and she was watching the last of them disappear down the long, vertical shaft. Yet still, there was no sign of either Kristoff or Josef. On the other hand, there weren't any enemy soldiers either. Standing in the parlor doorway, she bit her lip as she looked down the hall and fretted miserably. She was alone, having sent Rohl down with the prisoners to help them find their way. He had insisted on leaving her one of his crystals, though, for her own journey through the pitch dark passage. She clutched it tightly in her left hand, which itself hovered directly over her heart.

 _Ten more seconds,_ she thought. _Ten more seconds, then I go after them._ That gave her ten seconds to decide which "them" she meant.

She'd just taken a step out into the hallway when she heard pounding footsteps approaching. She stopped, unsure which way to turn or what she ought to do.

"Don't just stand there!" Kristoff yelled as he and Josef barreled around the corner. "Get inside! Now!"

She leaped backward into the room just in time. The two men bounced off the doorjambs and each other as they skidded through and slammed the door shut behind them. Kristoff, his back pressed against it, pointed urgently at the cabinet in the corner. Understanding his intent, Josef bolted over to it and began working the heavy piece of furniture across the floor. Anna hurried to help. Soon, it had taken Kristoff's place in front of the now violently shaking door. The small table joined it for good measure. Then, gasping and panting, Kristoff gestured toward the opening in the back of the fireplace.

"This isn't going to hold for long," he said. A nasty looking gash scored one cheek, and Anna suspected others were hiding beneath folds of torn tunic. Josef was hardly any better off. "We'd better get moving." Nobody argued. One by one, they squeezed into the black chimney and started down the shaky ladder.

Their progress was ponderously slow and relied more on groping hands and feet than on sight. Once the secret door was shut behind them, they had only the feeble glow of Rohl's crystal to see by. And even though she carried the tiny blue light, Anna still felt the darkness pressing in all around her in the confined space like a smothering weight. The rhythm of their descent started becoming almost a mantra inside her mind. _Hand, hand. Foot, foot. Breathe. Hand, hand. Foot, foot. Breathe._

By the time they finally reached the bottom, her arms were screaming from the exertion of clinging to the rungs so tightly and for so long. She collapsed against Kristoff, who simply held her while all three labored to catch their breath.

It was a full minute before Anna straightened, looked around, and asked the question.

"Um, where's...?"

• • •

 _He's having Gerda brought straight to him,_ Elsa thought. _He wants me to see. He wants me to watch. Then, he wants me to surrender. But that's a mistake. I can stop him. If worse comes to worst, if Anna and Kristoff haven't made it in time, I can still stop him. I can freeze his hands. I can knock him back with a snow blast. If I can make a little space, I can surround Gerda with walls of ice so that none of them will be able to get to her. Because he's letting me see, I'll have that chance. I just have to be ready._

She had forced her fists to relax. She needed to keep her fingers free, ready to move, ready to shape the magic in whatever manner and direction might be needed. Her eyes were locked on Ragnarr's face, measuring the man, trying to anticipate what he would be most likely to do.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Skadi still standing beside her, her posture as casually indifferent as ever. Yet though she didn't dare to turn away to look at her, Elsa could tell that something had changed. She could feel the cold radiating off the other woman and, considering that she had barely even registered the deepest cold of the winter nights far up in Lapland, that sensation in itself was significant. Dangerous, even.

Both Snow Queens were readying themselves for action.

A soldier suddenly appeared at Ragnarr's elbow and whispered urgently in his ear. With each unheard word, Ragnarr's face darkened. His lips slowly pulled back, baring his teeth, and his brows lowered until his eyes were nearly lost in their shadow. Once finished, the soldier hurriedly stepped back, though the crowded press of his comrades meant that he was unable to withdraw beyond arm's reach. The nervous look on his face made it clear that he was well aware of this unfortunate lack of distance.

"Think you've outmaneuvered me, do you?" asked Ragnarr, his bass voice rumbling like thunder. "Well, I suppose I do have to give you some credit. Quite devious of you, telling me that you had left your dear sister behind, safely out of harm's way, all while you'd actually sent her to somehow infiltrate the castle and free that entire lot of traitors, criminals, and scum. I never would have pegged you for a liar."

"What lie?" Elsa countered. "As I recall, I merely asked what you believed me capable of doing. You underestimated me, and Anna as well. That is nobody's fault but your own." Beside her, Skadi gave a soft but appreciative chuckle.

"True enough," Ragnarr allowed. "But let it not be said that I am a man who does not learn from his mistakes. I will not misjudge you in like fashion again, you may be assured. Allow me to prove that to you." He lifted one hand and, with a quick flick of his wrist, gestured to his men. From the back of the file where they had been hidden from Elsa's view, two immediately stepped forward. They were carrying something between them.

"No," Elsa breathed, her eyes growing wide. "Oh, no. Olaf!"

"Sorry, Elsa." The little snowman looked more miserable than frightened. "Everyone else got away, but I didn't quite make it."

"Friend of yours?" Ragnarr's sneer was almost lecherous. "One of the abominations spawned from your sorcery? How arrogant of you, to think you have the right to create life! You dare to dabble in the business of gods?"

"Speak not to me of gods!" Skadi said, her voice suddenly and effortlessly matching the dark power of Ragnarr's. "Nor of anything else of which you so clearly know nothing! Motherhood comes to mind."

"Motherhood?" Ragnarr guffawed. "Do you consider this your child? Would that make him a prince? Prince… what did you call him? Oh, yes. Prince Olaf!" He laughed again. "One more reason why the kingdom should be overjoyed at my return, if this is the sorry state of royal succession."

"What do you know of family?" Elsa exclaimed, fury building in her chest once again. "Or friendship? Or love? Do you even remember what any of those words mean? Did you ever?"

Mirth vanished from Ragnarr's face. "I loved my wife," he said through gritted teeth. "She was my family. She was my entire world. But you see, _she_ was a mother, too. Only she didn't create life so much as she traded her own away. The first part of it went into our daughter, Primrose. Everything she had left after that, she gave to… to…

"I watched her die!" he howled. "I held her in my arms and I watched her die! Everything I had, everything I was, I gave to her completely the moment we first met. But that night, there was nothing left. Nothing at all. She'd given it all away and kept nothing for herself. Nothing for us. Nothing for me."

"She left you a son," Elsa reminded him pointedly.

"A treacherous whelp who turned on me and banished me from my own kingdom? I think not. A son should be loyal to his father. I have no son.

"And soon, neither will you. Let's send him home, gentlemen."

Ragnarr stepped to one side as the two men advanced to the very edge of the parapet. Elsa watched as, between them, they swung Olaf back and forth several times. Then, on the last forward swing, they launched him skyward.

Elsa's hand flew up. Magic flowed through her and effortlessly caught the snowman in midair. He hung suspended, wobbling only the tiniest bit as a relieved smile spread across his face. He grinned down at Elsa, almost laughing as she slowly began to lower him to the ground.

A tongue of yellow flame raced from the top of the castle wall and engulfed Olaf. Neither he nor Elsa had any time to react. Even as her brain fought to process what she was seeing, Elsa watched Olaf vanish right before her eyes. The gout of fire followed shortly thereafter.

Ragnarr glowered down at Elsa, Skadi, and the soldiers behind them. In his hands, he held a long, narrow metal cylinder. Tiny flames still licked around its open end.

"You are both the spawn of devils," he snarled, "and the time has come for you to return to the fires from whence you were born. Allow me to light the way. Ready!"

Elsa saw similar devices suddenly appearing in the hands of soldiers all along the rampart.

"Aim!"

As one, the black nozzles swung in her direction.

"FIRE!"


	40. Fire and Ice

The thick ice glowed yellow and orange as spurts of liquid fire washed over it. Instinct had brought the partial dome into being in front of Elsa, curving back over her head to guard against the attack from on high, but it was now requiring constant reinforcement as flames from every direction continuously ate away at its outer layers.

The barrier was broad enough to also shield Skadi, though Elsa wasn't sure if that had been a product of her own protective instincts or the result of the other woman's actions. Either way, a glance showed her that Skadi's face was now drawn in lines of concentration and annoyance. Annoyance! Even a situation like this barely managed to faze her. Then again, what was this compared to everything else her long life had shown her? Here was one of the few beings, perhaps the only being, to have survived Ragnarok itself!

Ragnarok. Ragnarr. The two thoughts collided in Elsa's head and together formed an image of Olaf's last moment. She kept expecting to feel tears spilling from her eyes, yet so far, they had not come. Perhaps she was still in shock. Maybe the sudden attack had robbed her of the time she needed to fully absorb what she had just witnessed.

 _No,_ she realized in one of those peculiar moments of clarity that can strike at the most unexpected of times.. _No, the grief is here, but it is patient. It knows this is not its time. First, we must stop the man who causes grief. We must keep him from causing more. Grief will wait. But in the meantime, grief has friends that can help us. They are the ones we need at our side to do what must be done._

 _And they are here._

Pain and Anger forced a tortured scream from Elsa's throat. She had lost too much already – her mother and father, most of her childhood. How many times had she nearly lost Anna? Now Olaf had been taken from her, and it was more than she was willing to bear. Ragnarr would be brought to justice for his crimes. She would see to that. She would see him pay.

Power swelled within her as she drew upon the ever-present currents of magic. Guiding it down her arms, she poured it into the icy shield, seeking to thicken it to the point that it would last on its own for a short while, just long enough for her to go on the offensive. If she could only reduce the ferocity of the onslaught...

"Return fire!" The words broke through to her, penetrating the roar of the flames and even louder roaring of blood in her ears. "Fire at will!" She heard the report of weapons, saw projectiles whizzing through the air above her head, watched as some of the streams of fire swung away from her and stretched out toward Fritz and his men.

She flung one hand up and the ice wall extended itself, catching the questing blasts before they could reach their targets. "Retreat!" she yelled. "Fall back!"

"Not an option," Colonel Holberg responded over the tumult. "Rearguard reports that the enemy troops have been reinforced. They're slowly advancing and we're taking fire. The other ice wall will hold them for a while, but there's no getting out that way."

"Then don't. Go over the sides. The water's cold, but you should still be able to swim to safety."

Fritz shook his head. "They'd pick us off before we could reach the shore. Besides, every man here has sworn their loyalty to you, Your Majesty. We did not come all this way just to abandon you in the middle of a fight. If this is where you make your stand, then we stand with you."

Elsa glanced at the man, touched yet again my his unwavering loyalty. That was when a spurt of flame skated across the ice above her head and dropped onto Fritz's cap. A wave of her hand caught hat and fire alike with a flying ball of snow and ice, sending both careening off the bridge and into the water below.

"In that case, take the rest of your men and bolster the rearguard."

"But Your Majesty..."

"That's an order, Colonel," she said, turning away. "I can't afford to be dividing my attention. I need to know my back is safe so I can focus on what's in front of me."

Fritz hesitated for only a second. "Of course, Your Majesty. Come on, men!" And shouting directions as he went, he quickly led them back across the bridge.

"We are more alike than I realized," observed Skadi.

"Oh?" Elsa gritted her teeth while she tried to think through her next move. The constant noise and the throbbing power of flowing magic were making it difficult to concentrate.

"I always preferred the solitary hunt. As you prefer to fight alone."

"Fritz and his men are fighting, too."

"They fight for you. You do not let them fight with you."

"No," Elsa admitted. "Not this time. Ragnarr only brought these weapons because of me, because of what I can do. I will not let my powers put others at risk again. This is my fight."

"Yours and yours alone?"

"I don't know. You're still here, aren't you?"

"That I am."

"Well, then..." Elsa took a steadying breath followed by a leap of faith. She stopped pumping magic into the barrier. Greedy fire washed across its surface, scrabbling to reach her, ravenously eager to eat her alive. Yet the wall held, losing not even a millimeter's thickness.

"...it appears neither of us is alone today."

Skadi acknowledged this truth with a nod.

Elsa took the briefest of moments to close her eyes and collect herself before she began to draw upon the magic again. She had an image in her mind's eye, but it took some doing to give the idea form. It was unlike anything she had done before, though she had ample inspiration from which to draw. She guided the power in and let it wrap itself around her body. As on that night upon the North Mountain, it began at her feet and worked its way upward. Piece by piece, it encased her legs, her chest, her arms. This time, it did not stop at her shoulders but instead continued up her neck and all the way to the very crown of her head.

"Your sister would approve," Skadi commented, surprising Elsa with such a personal observation.

The ice armor flashed with reflected fire. "I'm no Joan of Arc," Elsa replied through the opening in her helmet, "but I _will_ do all I can to protect my people." Reaching up, she lowered the visor into place. Then she drew both of her arms back, hands flat, palms turned toward the castle.

They shot forward like pistons, and the section of barrier wall in front of her burst asunder. She sent chunks soaring up, up, pushing back against the jets of flame. Others traveled along shifting spirals, corkscrewing around and between the jets, making themselves as difficult to target as possible. Some of these made it all the way to the top of the wall and plowed into heads, shoulders, arms, and weapon barrels. Sprays of fire were sent careening wildly about, accompanied by shouts of warning and anger from neighboring soldiers.

The resulting confusion lasted only a few seconds, but by the time the first searingly hot geyser had managed to target her again, Elsa had augmented her defense with a shield attached to her left arm. Using it to catch the blast, she swept her right hand up and around. A glistening bolt of ice shot skyward from the base of wall. The man yelped as it smashed into the hand he'd been using to support the ungainly cylinder.

The dart shattered on impact, spraying shards as sharp as glass in every direction, and both of the soldier's hands flew up to protect his face. The metal tube of the flamethrower dropped over the parapet, swinging like a pendulum as it dangled from the hose that fed it fuel. Other men scrambled to drag it back up again, until the edge of a frozen blade severed the hose as cleanly as any axe.

Snow still clung to the slanting roof that topped the wall, but suddenly, there was far more of it than there had been. With the added weight, the entire mass quickly collapsed into a sliding cascade, tumbling off the shingles and pouring down like a miniature avalanche over a cliff edge. Everywhere that snow met fire, an elemental war was quickly waged. In some cases, the flames sputtered and died, overmatched by their enemy. Others saw the tide turn the opposite direction, ending with a sizzling hiss and a combination of rain and steam.

While the soldiers in the first group struggled to reignite their weapons, Elsa pressed her advantage, moving several strides closer to the castle gates. Then her ears were assaulted by a great tearing of metal. More loud exclamations issued from Ragnarr's troops as the barrels of the doused weapons distended, bulging in the middle until they began to rupture up and down their entire lengths. Glimmers of blue-white ice shown through the gaps, proving that Skadi was not content to simply stand back and watch.

All the still-functioning flamethrowers converged again on Elsa. She found herself caught in a crossfire from the soldiers stationed on either side of the main gate. Magic flooded into both armor and shield, yet she could still feel the intense heat scant millimeters away from her skin. She tried to copy Skadi's maneuver and reach inside the weapon barrels to burst them apart, but that was no good. So long as the flames were belching forth, cold could find no purchase there.

Instead, she conjured up a large slab of ice directly over her head. It hovered there unmoving, suspended in midair for several seconds while she caught her breath. Thick though it was, water was soon sheeting over its sides as it steadily gave way to the sustained attack. Then it began to move, and once in motion, it moved quickly. It climbed nearly straight up until it reached a level with the gap between wall and roof. From such a position, it was essentially useless as a defensive screen. That was why it went on the attack.

Tearing itself in two, it shot forward. The two halves swooped around the central gate tower and slipped through the narrow openings on either side. The most alert soldiers responded quickly enough to duck out of harm's way, but many were not so lucky. Several were driven backwards when the heavy weight plowed into them. Again, the assault on Elsa faltered as her assailants fell out of formation.

"First squad, fall back and regroup! Second and third squads to the front!"

The fire abated, allowing Elsa a welcome respite. It was frighteningly short-lived. Fresh soldiers stepped up to the parapet. Their weapons, instantly at the ready, loosed a volley down upon the women below. There was no fire this time, but the projectiles could be every bit as deadly. Elsa, unprepared for the sudden change in tactics, was just a shade too slow in adapting. Spangs and cracks announced that her armor had managed to absorb or deflect several potentially lethal impacts. Still, once she recognized the change, her concern lessened a little. She had learned much since Weselton's men had attacked her in the Ice Palace, including how to deal with simple weapons such as these.

Yet even as she was reaching out to freeze the triggers, the tall castle gates before her swung open. Fire erupted from the shadowed tunnel as if from a dragon's maw. Elsa cried out and stumbled backward as the unexpected flames engulfed her. Only the ice plating she wore saved her, though not completely. The salvo she'd just endured had managed to score it in several places, leaving minor dings and divots that she hadn't yet taken the time to repair. But the fire found them, made quick work of them, and wormed its way through to the flesh below. The pain was excruciating.

Another round rained down from the wall. The dual nature of the coordinated attacks coupled with the spots of searing agony left Elsa shaken and disoriented. She directed magic to the weakened holes in her armor, sealing them up and wincing as the cold ice came in contact with the damaged patches of skin beneath. Turning to one side, she swung her shield around to take the brunt of the flames. Another application of power forced it to grow, both in thickness and surface area.

So far, Ragnarr's men had focused most of their attention and energy upon Elsa. After all, the strange events surrounding her coronation had been all that anyone on the continent had been able to talk about for months afterward. She was the one they'd been warned about when first setting out to conquer Arendelle. And she'd been the one to press the attack upon them. Of course she would be their main concern.

They had apparently deemed their general's ravings about the other Snow Queen to be mere political theater – words spoken to swing public opinion toward him and away from Elsa. None of them had been present to witness firsthand Skadi's actions in the courtyard the day she had abducted Anna. And though some had seen the battering ram that had bludgeoned the gates earlier, it was far easier to believe that to also have been the work of the Ice Queen of Arendelle. As far as they knew or could tell now, Skadi was simply standing there doing nothing. Better to deal with the clear and present threat first. There would be time enough to clean up loose ends later.

Which goes to show that, while a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, a great deal of ignorance is almost certainly worse.

At first, Elsa thought that her eyes were being tricked by ripples of heat haze or some warping of her heat-tortured shield. She had counted four men as they'd passed through the gates to engage her at close quarters with their flamethrowers. Now though, there appeared to be at least twice that many. Had even more been sent in an attempt to completely overwhelm her?

Then suddenly, one red-hot stream swung wildly off target, followed quickly by a second. It looked to Elsa like there was some sort of struggle going on between the men. Deciding to take a chance, she opened a small window in her shield – which was now nearly as tall as she was herself – and leaned forward to peer through.

Four white, almost-featureless figures were grappling with the soldiers, attempting to wrest the deadly weapons away from stubborn fingers. They were in so close among the men that the soldiers could not even try to turn their fire on the creatures for fear of burning their own comrades instead. When four more snow warriors joined the fray, the last of the flames that had been continuing to savage Elsa's shield sputtered and died.

Panicked shouts from above caused Elsa to look up. The walkway atop the wall, which had already been crowded by the press of bodies, was now even more so. Several more brilliantly white figures stood amongst the soldiers. There was barely space enough for them to move, but they hardly needed to. Having seen what those below had already done, the soldiers immediately reacted to the unexpected dangers that had suddenly materialized in their midst. Weapons and fists both were swung, but the frozen golems seemed utterly oblivious to both.

It was all the distraction Elsa needed. Abandoning the now cumbersome shield, she stepped to one side to give herself room in which to operate. Using magic instead of her hands, she tipped the helmet's visor back up off her face. Then she planted herself, legs and arms both spread wide, hands open, palms turned toward the sky.

A cerulean glow appeared in the air above each hand, and in the center of each glow spun a tiny, perfectly clear sphere. The seeds grew rapidly, reaching the approximate size of an apple in a single second. Then, with the barest twitch of a finger, Elsa sent both speeding off. They flew true and smacked soundly into the weapons of soldiers whose attentions were otherwise occupied. By the time the broken shards of wood and metal had fallen to the ground, her next two projectiles were already speeding toward targets of their own.

Amid the chaos and the din, the soft pffft and the longer shooshing noise that followed both went unheard. Some few noticed the trail of smoke that arced high up into the sky.

None missed the thunderous explosion that erupted in the middle of the bridge's short span.

Elsa suddenly found herself lying flat on her face, a ringing in her ears and sharp pains all across her back. Her ice armor had shattered, and the sting of numerous cuts and lacerations spoke to the violence that had smashed it to pieces. She shuddered to think how deep those wounds might have been if she'd not had the armor's protection. And then her shock-addled brain remembered all the other souls on the bridge who would not have been so fortunate.

As she pushed herself painfully up off the ground, Elsa worked on repairing her plate mail. She had already learned that lesson once today, though she did chose to dispense with the helmet. She was having trouble enough hearing without it. Looking around, she quickly realized that things close at hand beneath the shadow of the castle walls had changed dramatically. The four soldiers were all now sprawled just outside the gates. None appeared to be moving. Of the snow warriors that had been engaged with them, all that remained were streaks of white upon the stones.

Elsa spun to seek out Skadi, and then staggered as the sudden movement shook her already unstable equilibrium. She could not see the Snow Queen, but that was chiefly because a heavy dome of snow and ice now covered the spot where she had been standing. Even as Elsa watched, the top began to melt away and Skadi's head rose up through the hole. Her normally sleek hair was disarrayed and she even looked slightly shaken, but she didn't appear to have been seriously injured.

At the far end of the bridge, a handful of loyalist soldiers were already back on their feet and, though none too steady themselves, were nevertheless attending to their comrades. A large chunk was missing from the defensive ice wall. And between Elsa and her allies, a circle of blackened, blasted stone marked where the rocket had impacted.

Her ears were still recovering from the force of the explosion, so she did not hear the shouts. But she did see one of a loyalists – Fritz? – gesticulating wildly toward the sky. She looked up and saw another smoke trail curving high overhead. This one, however, was stretching much further than the one before. There was no way it would fall anywhere near the bridge. In fact, it looked as if its current trajectory would carry it…

Elsa flung an arm up to the heavens. Sparks of ice and energy shot from her fingertips, racing the missile as it reached its apex and began to drop toward the cluster of buildings that nestled beside the docks.

The magic solidified just before it connected with the rocket, causing the tail to slew around. The rocket spun off course, narrowly missing the roofs of several houses. A ship moored at harbor suddenly erupted in a shower of splintered boards and a roiling ball of fire.

Sound began to return to Elsa's world, and she heard yelling behind her. Turning, she looked up and saw that many of the soldiers on the wall were now looking inward at the courtyard and shouting at the tops of their lungs. This time, she heard the sound of the rocket igniting, saw the high, parabolic arc as it rose above the castle walls.

Rockets such as these were temperamental and inaccurate under the best of circumstances. Ragnarr's men were attempting to launch them blind from within the protective walls of the castle. The positioning of their first shot had been more a stroke of luck on their part than any testimony to their skill. Now their third attempt was climbing much too high and far too straight. If its trajectory held, then when it came back down, it would strike the very castle itself directly above the gates! Elsa had a split second to decide: allow her enemies to cripple themselves with friendly fire, or protect the very home she had come to liberate?

It wasn't really a choice at all.

So Elsa gave herself over to what Skadi had described as "the river." She stopped trying to guide the magic. She stopped even trying to guide herself within it. No sail, no tiller, no oars. Even the boat disappeared. There was an instant's sensation of falling, a tensing of mind and body as both prepared to be submerged beneath the raging flow of raw, untamed power. And then...

Weightlessness. She had expected to plunge deep into the magic, but that wasn't what happened at all. Instead, it swept up to meet her. It caught her and cradled her. She felt as light as the foam on the crest of a wave. But behind the foam, behind _her_ was the might and mettle of the entire ocean.

Once again, she reached out and up. This time, she knew she would need more subtlety and finesse than her earlier hammer blow. But now, she also knew exactly how to obtain both. Up in the sky, ice began to spread across the metal casing as it plunged back toward earth. Soon, it was completely engulfed from tip to tail. Its downward momentum was too great to arrest in time, but she could move the ice, and that meant she could also move the rocket within. She pushed and pulled at it, nudging it, working to maneuver it just the slightest bit off course, fighting to bring it down somewhere safe.

The speeding white blur flashed past the castle wall and disappeared from sight behind the bridge railing. A second later, the explosion rocked Elsa as a plume of water geysered up from where the rocket had detonated.

She knew now that she had to end this quickly. If even one of these unpredictable rockets got past her, the resulting damage would be incalculable. She needed to get inside the castle and stop the problem at its source. The outer gates now stood open, but the inner doors had been locked and barred behind the flamethrower squad when they'd marched out to attack. Skadi had been right. Doors could be replaced. But she could ill afford the time that would be wasted knocking them down. Not when there was a better, faster option available to her.

After all, the rocket was not the only thing that she had covered in ice.

She felt the power surrounding her, and she let it take hold. The sensation of weightlessness had never exactly left her body, but it now became something unquestionably different. That will tend to happen once your toes leave the ground behind.

Elsa rose into the air like an untethered balloon. Or, more precisely, she rose very much like Skadi's sled when it had lifted out of the courtyard with Anna along as an unwilling passenger. Winds whipped all around her, sending shards of fractured bridge stones skittering wildly about and pulling some lighter bits of debris up into a great, swirling vortex. The faces of Ragnarr's men as she drew level with them were so filled with shock, she doubted any of their owners would even have been able to properly fire a weapon. As it was, they seemed to have completely forgotten that such things still existed. Their eyes merely continued to trace her progress as she rose higher still.

It was impossible for Elsa to tell whether she herself actually leaned forward or whether the currents simply began to apply a bit more pressure between her shoulder blades. The result either way was that she now swept forward as well, approaching the ridge of the long roof that covered the castle walls. Clearing it with effortless ease, she looked down in time to see two soldiers in Arendelle uniforms frantically working to light the fuse of the next rocket where it rested upon its metal launching frame.

She did not raise a hand. She didn't even move a finger. She simply formed a request in her mind and the magic that she now felt everywhere in the courtyard responded. A powerful gust blew in from absolutely nowhere. The flame that the one soldier had lifted above his head flapped, fluttered, and abruptly went out.

"Sorcery!" she heard one of the men cry as he pointed up at her. "Witch! She's come to kill us. She'll murder us all!"

Elsa landed a stone's throw away from the two men, her feet touching down as gently as any snowflake. Behind her, she heard the clatter of many booted feet descending the wooden stairways from the walkways above. Clearly, Ragnarr's men had roused themselves from the stupor that had held them motionless only a few short moments earlier. She turned half-around to watch their progress.

"Halt!" shouted one of the first officers to set foot upon the courtyard. "Do not move, in the name of..."

"I am not going anywhere," Elsa answered coldly. "This is my home. Nor do I need to be reminded of my grandfather's name. I would very much like to speak with him again, however, now that there is no longer such a mighty wall separating us. Where is he?"

The officer made no attempt to respond, so clearly thrown was he by her unexpectedly calm demeanor. He and his fellows had all recovered at least enough of their wits that those who still held functional weapons had brought them back to bear upon Elsa.

"Do you plan to arrest me?" she asked, a hard edge creeping into her voice. "Because you should know that I broke out of the dungeons once already, and that was when I barely understood how to control my powers. I've gotten a bit better since then." She allowed the magic to catch her up again and hold her suspended, toes just barely hovering above the ground. Her hair had come undone during the fight, and the winds whipped the lose strands about her face. She ignored them completely.

The soldiers were taut with indecision. There had been no talk of arrest among their superiors. Their orders had been far simpler. Attack. Show no mercy. They had followed those orders to the letter, yet still their target stood before them, practically unscathed. And now, she could fly! These matters had long since passed beyond their understanding and abilities. It seemed clear to every man there that new orders were most definitely called for. More than anything, they awaited someone who was ready to give them.

"Lieutenant!"

"Major Nagel, sir!" the junior officer said, visibly relieved to hear a superior's voice. "We have the renegade princess surrounded, sir!"

"Yes, I can see that. Now stand down."

"Sir?"

"You heard me, Lieutenant."

"Of… of course, sir." Around the circle, weapons were fractionally lowered. In response, Elsa lowered herself back onto the paving stones as well.

"You will forgive me if I find it difficult to trust this sudden change of heart," she said, addressing the newcomer. Major Nagel inclined his head in acknowledgment.

"A simple matter of accepting reality, I fear," he replied. "We have fielded every weapon in our arsenal. You have countered them all. Now here you stand in the midst of the castle we were tasked with defending from all invaders. Clearly, we have failed in our mission."

"But Major..." interrupted the lieutenant.

Nagel turned a slow, repressive glare upon his subordinate. "I would have your honest assessment, Lieutenant. Can you foresee any scenario, given our current position and the armaments now left to us, in which we stand a chance of defeating this woman?"

"There are still the reinforcements from the garrison," the junior officer declared stubbornly.

"Really? Tell me then, where is the other woman? You know, the one they call the Snow Queen. If all of you men are here attempting to deal with this situation, who is left to deal with her? As I recall, the outer garrison was only supplied with traditional firearms. All the flamethrowers were locked in the castle armory, were they not? How long, in your opinion, will they be able to stand against her unaided?"

As if in answer, a cheer went up outside the castle walls.

"Yes, that's rather what I thought as well." He signaled to two unarmed soldiers. "Go. Open the gates."

"Sir, I must protest!"

"Look at it this way, Lieutenant. Either that cheer came from our men, in which case the reinforcements you were so fervently hoping for will soon come marching straight through those doors. Or it did not, in which case you need to ask yourself how long you think the doors will remain standing with one Snow Queen outside and another within."

All turned as the mighty doors were pulled inward.

Battered, beaten, and bloody, the victorious soldiers nevertheless staggered into the courtyard with their weapons at the ready. Upon their shoulders hung the fractured remnants of oversized white snowflakes.

Major Nagel faced Elsa. "I offer our surrender, Your Majesty. The castle is yours."

"Just like that?" Elsa asked suspiciously. "What happened to fighting until the last man falls?"

A bitter smile briefly twisted Nagel's lips. "I have served with men who could inspire that sort of loyalty, Ma'am. Suffice it to say that your grandfather is not one of them."

Elsa's already grim face grew darker still, drawing her mouth into a thin line. "Where is he, Major? I appear to have lost track of him during the heat of the battle."

"He retreated into the palace, Your Majesty, though I do not believe you will find him there now."

"Why not?"

"Because after hearing how your sister had orchestrated the release of his prisoners, he demanded to be taken to the room from which they'd escaped the castle. He then closed the door behind him and, since the lock had been broken when the door had been knocked in, simply ordered that he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances.

"At first, those who remained standing in the hall heard a great deal of noise and swearing from inside. Then, after several minutes, they heard nothing at all. When it became clear that we could not hope to repel you for much longer, I defied his orders and entered. Apart from several pieces of broken furniture, the room was completely empty."

"Your Majesty!" Colonel Holberg limped up beside Elsa and offered a short bow. He did not salute, for he cradled his right arm against his chest. A dark stain on the shoulder of his uniform jacket gave testament to the fresh aggravation of his old injury. "What are your orders?"

She did not answer immediately. Her thoughts had been given wholly over not to the men before her or to those under her command, but to one the singular individual unto whom she was determined to impart her complete and undivided attention.

"Consider all these men prisoners of war," she instructed at last. "Detain them as you best see fit, in whatever accommodations you find available and appropriate. We shall deal with them later."

"Understood, Your Majesty." Under Fritz's efficient command, his soldiers quickly began disarming their opposite numbers.

"And as soon as you can, send someone to rendezvous with the prisoners like we had arranged. If Kai is well enough and willing, then I would like him to start the process of setting things back to rights as soon as may be. Otherwise, I will need you to take charge for a while, Colonel."

"Queen Elsa?" he asked somewhat perplexedly as she turned and, without another word, began to stride off alone across the courtyard toward the open gates.

"There is one final matter that I must take care of," she called back over her shoulder. "Personally."

Skadi was sitting just beyond the castle wall. She had crafted a simple chair for herself – one far less ostentatious than the throne she had left behind – and appeared to be entirely calm and relaxed. With the cauldron of emotions that Elsa could feel boiling about inside her, she found Skadi's continued equanimity to be annoying in the extreme.

"Why are you still out here?" she asked a bit snappishly. "Everyone else has gone inside."

"Yes, well… The last time I entered your home, I may have been rather a bit rude about it. I suppose it only seemed right that this time, I should await a proper invitation."

"Then consider yourself invited." Elsa had no patience for this right now. In fact, she shouldn't even have wasted time asking the question in the first place. Ragnarr had found Bolli's tunnel. He'd used it to escape. This could not be allowed. _She_ would not allow it. She would find him. She would stop him. She would put an end to this, once and for all.

Elsa walked across the bridge, skirting the edge of the blackened crater. She stopped when she was well past it, standing instead in the middle of the broad plaza at the head of the docks. The fighting had driven all civilian bystanders back into their homes, and none had yet dared to venture back out again.

Closing her eyes, she let her arms hang loosely down to either side. Then she called out to the river of magic with an appeal for help. Her arms began to drift up and away from her body. As they did so, spiraling traces of snow rose from the ground, spinning round and around her, climbing higher and higher until they converged at a point several meters above her head.

Her hands continued their steady ascent. Snow continued to be drawn in from an ever expanding radius. And the floating white sphere continued to grow. The plaza had soon been swept clean, yet she reached further still. From the roofs of nearby buildings, from the streets that ran between them, from everywhere and from nowhere – the orb was far larger than could be accounted for by what nature had provided. It glistened and sparkled and somehow managed to convey the impression that, despite its immense size, every single flake that made up its volume was constantly spinning, whirling, and whizzing about entirely separate from all of its siblings.

There was no whispered instruction this time, no need to explain what she wanted done. The magic knew, and it was ready. Eager even. The muscles in her forearms tightened for a split second. Her fingers splayed and stretched out to their fullest extent. And with that simplest of gestures, the multitudes were unleashed. The great ball exploded as every single, seemingly insignificant snowflake streaked off on its assigned quest.

"You have grown," said the voice from behind her.

"That's something we mortals tend to do."

"Yes, I suppose it is." Skadi paused. "But it is not the only thing."

"No. We also die. And we forget. Yet strangely, we rarely seem to forget those who've died. Not if they ever really meant anything to us." Olaf's happy, guileless face swam before Elsa. So too did the faces of her soldiers: weakened, wounded, or worse. Ragnarr would certainly not be allowed to forget his crimes, she thought. Not once she had found him.

"Indeed. Some things should never be forgotten."

"Is there a point to all this?" Elsa asked, her anger flaring again.

Then it happened, and much quicker than she had ever expected. Nor was the message brought back to her by a lone snowflake with barely enough strength left to move. No, this time, a brilliantly-white ribbon swooped across the sky, arched over the town, and came to a halt right at her very feet. It was a monochromatic rainbow, a giant arrow, an unmistakable path that she needed only to follow. And at the other end lay her quarry.

"Never mind," she said to her guest. "We will have to finish this conversation later."

The magic took hold of Elsa's suit of armor and Elsa within it. Both rose into the air and set off along the sparkling trail.

Skadi frowned. Then she conjured up a round disk of crystalline ice, stepped onto it, and likewise traded the ground for the snow-streaked sky.

Wherever he was, Ragnarr was about to have company.

* * *

 **A/N: The end approaches. If the plan holds, you can expect two more chapters plus an epilogue.**


	41. That Which Was Taken

"Anna! Anna, just wait a minute, will you?" He barely managed to grab her arm before she barreled headlong around the next corner.

"We have to get to the castle," she pleaded, trying to twist away. "Elsa's still down there and she's in trouble. We need to help her!"

"With what? Anna, you ran out of the safe house so fast, we didn't have time to grab anything. We have no weapons and no idea what we might be heading into!"

It was hard for Kristoff to believe just how often he'd managed to get himself into situations lately that would have been perfectly described by that sentence – their escape from the castle with Ragnarr's hostages being the most recent example that sprang to mind. At least nothing more had gone wrong once they'd made it out of the tunnel. He, Anna, and Rohl had led the newly liberated prisoners around the curve of the mountain as quickly as they'd been able. Then, somewhat reassured by the large mass of good, solid earth that hid them from the guard towers, they'd made their way to a large cabin nestled in a divot on the side of the mountain. They had already arranged ahead of time with the family that lived there, who were loyal to their cause, to shelter the escapees while they all awaited news of the confrontation at the castle.

Anna, who had never been good at waiting patiently for such things, had counted the minutes with ceaseless pacing from one side of the room to the other and back again. When the first of the blasts had rocked the rafters, she'd been out the door and pelting heedlessly down the street before anyone had even the slightest chance to stop her. Glass in nearby windowpanes had still been shaking from the third shock wave by the time Kristoff had finally managed to catch up to her.

"So what are you saying?" she asked now, fear for her sister driving all other concerns from her mind. "That we should just leave her down there in the middle of whatever's going on, fighting all alone?"

"She's not alone, Anna. Skadi's with her, and so are Colonel Holberg and his men. And anyway, I'm not saying we shouldn't go. I'm just saying that it wouldn't hurt to exercise a _tiny_ bit of caution. You know, for once. The last thing we want is to plow straight into a group of Ragnarr's men because we were in too much of a hurry to pay attention."

"We could take 'em!" Anna insisted, a defiant spark in her eye.

"Do you really want to take that chance? What if you ended up being captured and used as a hostage against Elsa? Again?"

That thought finally seemed to sober her up a little. "Oh. Well, I suppose… I mean, we could always… Alright, fine then! We'll do it your way. But we're still going down there!"

"Fair enough," he agreed, pushing past her and peeking around the corner of the building they'd been hiding behind. "Looks like the coast is clear, at least to the next house. Follow me. And try to keep quiet."

They'd barely crossed half the distance when Anna grabbed his shoulder and exclaimed, "Kristoff, look!" Trying hard not to roll his eyes, he followed her pointing finger up, up, up…

"Okay. That's the strangest snow flurry I've ever seen," he allowed. "Doesn't usually fly straight out in all directions like that."

"It's Elsa! It has to be!"

"It could be Skadi."

"I don't think so. It doesn't seem like her style."

"And what makes you an expert on her style all of a sudden?"

"Look, trust me. It's Elsa. I just know it!"

"Okay, okay. It's Elsa. That's a good thing, right?" He looked around apprehensively, afraid to see a band of unfriendly soldiers come marching into view at any second. "But if you still want to get down there to see her, we really shouldn't just keep standing here like this."

"Oh, sorry!" she said, and indicated with a gesture that he should continue in the lead. Yet even as they resumed their descent toward the castle, she spent far more time looking up at the sky than down at where she was planting her feet.

Kristoff nearly lost his balance the next time she grabbed onto him, so forceful was her excitement.

"Look, look! Over there! Do you see it?"

"Kinda hard not to." Any annoyance he might have felt was quickly forgotten as he took in the sight of the gleaming white streamer that was somehow impossibly floating high over the town. "So whose style is that?"

Anna slowly shook her head. "I have no idea."

"Any guess what's going on?"

Wordlessly, she shrugged.

"Wait, is that…?" Kristoff squinted. "That is Skadi, isn't it? I mean, considering that she's flying and all." The sound of his own voice stringing those words together with such ease triggered within him a sudden (albeit brief) longing for the simplicity of a frozen mountain lake and a nice, strong saw.

"It must be," Anna agreed, and then gasped. "Kristoff!" Her shout was half-strangled with disbelief.

"I see it! I mean her. Them!" He brought himself up just short of wondering whether things could possibly get any stranger. "They're both flying now? What does that even mean?"

"It means we're heading in the wrong direction!" she replied fretfully.

"Anna…"

"Well, they wouldn't both leave the castle unless Elsa believed that everything was under control down there. Even then, she wouldn't have left unless there was something even more important happening somewhere else. So wherever they're going, that's where we need to be. Come on!"

"But we were supposed to wait at the… safe… house," Kristoff said to empty air, for Anna was already sprinting back up the street in the direction from which they'd just come. Resigned to another sudden change in plans, he turned his feet uphill and pounded off after her once again.

• • •

How? How had it all gone so completely and miserably wrong?

Ragnarr unleashed a long string of inventive invective as, for the umpteenth time, his foot found yet another patch of ice, slipped, and nearly tumbled him back down the mountain. Yes, there was the source of all his misfortune. Ice. Snow. And the curse of those two women who held both at their beck and call.

He'd known he would have to face Elsa, of course. He'd planned for that, made extensive and expensive arrangements to deal with it, and had considered himself well-prepared for that inevitable confrontation. What he hadn't counted on, what he could not possibly have foreseen, was the second witch somehow getting herself involved.

How, he asked himself again. How had that damnable daughter of his damnable son managed to forge some sort of alliance with the Snow Queen? Or _had_ she lost her mind to those perverse magics? Oh, he hadn't honestly believed the story he had spun for the people. Not at first, at any rate. But as he continued his seemingly futile struggle to make sense of all that had just happened to him, it was an explanation that became increasingly difficult to dismiss. Certainly it would explain much, even if it did raise new questions all its own.

Had she known? That was foremost on the list. Had the wretched Snow Queen known of his plans? Had she chosen to make her move when she did simply to spite and thwart him? Ah, but if she had, then why go to such elaborate lengths? If all she'd wanted to do was toy with him – again – she could have done that easily enough without dragging those two brats into the middle of everything. No, it was far more likely that she'd been operating entirely under her own timetable and agenda.

In a way, that was almost worse. If she had been plotting against him without his knowledge, then his plans would have been doomed from the start and there would have been little he could have done to change this fate. But if it had all been accident and coincidence, then it was possible he might have succeeded. If his timing had been slightly different, if he'd been able to take Elsa down first so that he would only have had to face one demon at a time, things could have turned out very differently. If that was the reality, then it would mean his defeat had effectively come at the hands of sheer, dumb luck.

Of course, there was always the worst possibility of them all. It was also the simplest and therefore, much as he hated to admit it, the most likely. That everything the Snow Queen had reportedly said during her initial attack had been true. That she had only come to take Elsa away with her, and that she had no interest whatsoever in Arendelle. The implications of that were truly appalling. That she then returned to his kingdom, which held no interest for her, and in Elsa's company would mean that his freak of a granddaughter had somehow managed to defeat the very woman who had bested him all those years ago. What else but total subjugation could possibly have motivated a creature as powerful as the one he had then fought to now debase herself in such a fashion?

If that was what truly had happened, then it would mean that all his plans had been based upon a miscalculation that was truly epic in scale. All of this – his total, utter, and abject failure – was entirely the result of his own mistake. His years of scheming, conniving, bribery, flattery, and trickery would have been reduced to ash simply because he had so woefully underestimated his opponent. That when the scores were all tallied, there would be nobody left to blame but himself. The thought was nearly enough to make him vomit.

So when the trail he'd been following up the side of the mountain paused in its ascent at a narrow, wedge-shaped shelf that projected straight out over a very steep drop, he paused as well to catch his breath and settle his gorge. He would have had to stop anyway, he realized as he scowled down at the rock beneath his feet.

A thick layer of ice covered nearly the entire path. From somewhere high overhead, water cascaded fitfully down, catching the edge of the trail and spreading out across both it and the triangular shelf. Some made it far enough to spill over the edge in a fairly anemic trickle, but enough of it froze to keep the treacherous sheet well fed.

Ragnarr swore. He was in no mood to be picking his way across a skating rink like this, whose only saving grace was that it was at least fairly level. He would have to exercise considerable caution if he wanted to remain upright. And right then, he could not bear the thought of falling to his hands and knees, even if no one would see him. Not that day. He had already suffered the indignity of losing his kingdom for a second time. He would not be reduced to crawling around on the ground like some pitiful animal.

He had just placed one foot on the ice when a blizzard suddenly swallowed him.

Just as quickly, the air around him cleared. The snow moved off, but only by the barest of margins. The fat flakes swooped and swirled like a swarm of angry bees, hovering right beyond the edge of the precipice. Then, as when a magnet is suddenly placed beneath a bed of iron filings, they all dropped, snapping into position to form a narrow strip of white that shot off into the distance toward the capital far below.

So this was it then. He would not even be allowed to slink quietly away. Instead, he was to suffer one last humiliation at the hands of those unnatural monstrosities. What an ignoble fate for the proud leader of this once-great kingdom. Well, he still had that at least: his pride. If they expected him to grovel for mercy or, worse still, forgiveness, he would at least be able to deliver them a small, parting disappointment.

Abandoning his attempts to cross the sheet of ice, he instead leaned back against the rock face and adopted the most contemptuous air he could manage. It did not take much effort. Then he waited. He did not have to wait long.

The two women stepped onto the shelf like passengers disembarking from an unseen boat, apparently unimpeded by the slick surface beneath their feet. For an instant, they both looked so much alike that Ragnarr was startled, wondering if this was some new conjury at work. Even their dour expressions were mirrors of each other. But the last thing he needed was to willingly cede even more power to them. He would not be unsettled so easily. And so, to break whatever wisps of spell might still be befuddling his brain, Ragnarr laughed.

"Two queens against a solitary king?" he asked. "That hardly seems fair, now does it? This is not how the game is played. Unless..." And here, he chuckled again. "Tell me, which of you started out as the pawn?"

"Father told me you never much cared for chess," Elsa replied, her voice betraying no emotion of any kind.

"A fool says many things that aren't true."

"And supposedly, you are no fool. Yet here you stand, caught out in a falsehood of your own. Did you not swear to me that you were also not a coward?"

Ragnarr bristled. "It is not cowardice to retreat from a battle you have lost. Nor is it courage to needlessly throw your life away out of some juvenile sense of honor."

"You needn't fear on that score, Grandfather. No one will ever mistake you for an honorable man."

He raised a hand to his chest and, in tones of sickliest mockery, replied, "Oh, my heart! My pride! I am stricken! How ever shall I recover from such a wound delivered by so sharp a tongue? Come, girl," he sneered. "You will have to do much better if you truly hope to put an end to all this."

Magic like blue lightning sparked over Elsa's armor – arcing, crossing, combining until it all gathered in her right hand. There grew the maelstrom. A tight orb of twisting winds whipped the power around her fist. Ice formed, flickered, fractured, and faded. There came a dagger, then a mace. Those gave way in rapid succession to a sword, a pike, a halberd, a morning star…

"Such pretty toys," Ragnarr taunted. "Tell me, have you ever actually trained with anything more deadly than a dinner knife?"

Elsa's arm shot up. An icicle-shaped projectile flew from her palm and shattered against the rock beside Ragnarr's ear.

"Ah," he said. "So I see." And though he succeeded in looking unimpressed, his jocularity vanished.

"How many have suffered because of you?" Elsa asked, her voice tight. "How many have died? How many more would have if my father hadn't managed to stop you when he did?"

"You should ask the woman beside you," he answered. "She would have been the one killing them, not me."

"She spared your life, didn't she? I doubt you would have done the same had your positions been reversed."

"Of course not," Ragnarr replied. "What king keeps his crown who leaves his enemies alive to attack again another day?"

"A strong one. One who cultivates alliances more powerful than his enemies so that they have more to fear from such an attack than he does."

"Oh, so that's what this is?" He gestured at Skadi. "My enemy becomes your ally? Because I didn't notice any of Arendelle's other allies coming to its defense while you were gone."

"I didn't say that I was a strong leader. Not yet." Sparks again flared around Elsa's clenched first. "But I _am_ getting stronger."

Ragnarr snorted. "Well then, I suppose the time has come for you to prove exactly how powerful you really are, hasn't it? Here I am. You have me, alone and unarmed. Defenseless. There's nobody here to witness what you do next, excepting this one who seems unlikely to say anything to anyone. So why don't we see just how far you've come, shall we? What do you say? Are you as strong as she is? Or," and he lifted a finger to point at the roiling ball of energies that still encased her fist, "are you as strong as _I_ am?"

The weight of untold winters hung in the hush that followed. Elsa stared grimly at Ragnarr, who stared brazenly back. He was moderately surprised to note that the Snow Queen was watching Elsa as well, though her expression remained as inscrutable as ever.

The air around Elsa's hand spun faster and faster. Arcs of magic licked out with ever increasing frequency, leaping to her armor and to the ice beneath her feet. Shards of ice materialized in orbit about her fist, spiraled down, collided, and began to coalesce into some amorphous shape caught in the throes of deciding what it would yet become. The very mountain itself seemed to hold its breath.

Then the sparks vanished and the winds died. There was a crack and a tinkle, and the fractured ice fell to the ground like crystalline grains of sand.

"I am exactly as strong as I am," Elsa said. "That will have to be enough for now.

"You will stand trial for your crimes, Grandfather," she continued, "although I doubt the outcome will surprise anyone. The penalty for treason is death. However, since you were no longer a citizen of Arendelle when you acted to overthrow its government, that charge cannot apply. Sedition will suffice."

"So, a lifetime's imprisonment then?" Ragnarr scoffed. "After banishing me from my home for twenty years, now you will force me to live out the rest of my days in its dungeons? Such irony."

"Perhaps not." Elsa regarded her grandfather with judicial detachment. "On our trip back from Lapland, we were briefly waylaid in Kråkeheim. It was there that we learned all that had happened while we had been gone. So before we left, I requested a favor of King Ulrik and Queen Olavine. By now they will have dispatched, on the fastest ship available, a letter to Corona."

"Corona?" Ragnarr's face registered a mixture of shock and suspicion.

"To Queen Primrose of Corona, to be precise. I explained the entire situation to her, as well as the best outcome that we could hope to achieve. And in so doing, I requested another favor. Or I made her an offer, depending on how you choose to look at it. It will take some time, of course, before we receive her response, but if she is amenable, then I will remand you over into her custody.

"From the stories my father told me, Aunt Primrose suffered far less at your hand than he always did. So perhaps some time spent with the last family left on this planet who might still harbor some kind feelings toward you might make a difference. Personally, I have my doubts. Then again, I wouldn't be the woman I am today without the love of my own family, so who knows? Maybe even you can make something worthwhile out of your life before the end."

"My life!" Ragnarr barked. " _My_ life? This so-called life I've been forced to live hasn't been my own since the day I met her!" He jabbed an accusatory finger at Skadi, who looked back at him impassively.

"Nothing? After all these years, have you not a single word to say to me? None at all?" Skadi remained stubbornly mute. "Ha! Well, if I am to be tried for insurrection, then it seems only fair that you also be tried as a thief."

"What do you mean?" asked Elsa warily.

"Oh, you don't know? Why am I not surprised! Well then, why don't we begin the trial right here and now. I'll even start the questioning. I have only one, after all, and it's simple enough.

"What memories did you rip from my head, you filthy bitch?"

Elsa was stunned. For the first time since they had landed, she tore her eyes away from Ragnarr to look at Skadi. "You… you took something from him?" she asked in disbelief. "Kai and Gerda told me of Father's suspicions that you'd met him long ago, but they had always assumed you had just bested him in a fight using your magics. They never imagined that you had..." A hurt expression crossed her face. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Skadi's eyes were locked onto Ragnarr's, but her reply was clearly meant for Elsa. "I forgot."

"You forgot?" The exclamation burst from two throats simultaneously.

"You!" Ragnarr seethed. "You defiled me! You reached into my mind, rummaged through my most private moments, and then plucked out whatever it was that struck your fancy. You left me there, alone in the middle of the woods. Left me to be forever tormented by the knowledge that some part of me was missing, that I was somehow less than what I once had been. You ruined me, and yet you couldn't even be bothered to _remember?_ "

"But," Elsa interjected, confusion warring with revulsion, "that's not possible. You couldn't have forgotten. That was the point of all of this. You remembered everything!"

"Oh, yes," Skadi agreed with the barest of nods. "Before you came to me, I am sure I remembered it quite clearly. But then, thanks to you, I was once again blessed with the gift of forgetfulness. Did you think I would not use it?"

Elsa stared at her, astonished. Skadi offered a small shrug in return.

"It was a long trip south. What did you think I was doing all those times when I was not teaching you?"

"You were… forgetting? And you chose to forget this? To forget him?"

"You need to understand. I did not know who he was. He never told me his name, nor where he was from. He was simply a man I encountered in the forests of Lapland. Mean-spirited and cruel. Arrogant. Violent. A man, in short, like far too many others I have had the displeasure of knowing throughout my long life. His only mark of distinction was that he had the misfortune of attacking one of my animal friends while I was nearby. Beyond that, he was… insignificant."

"Insignificant!" Ragnarr bellowed belligerently.

"The reason I craved forgetfulness, you will recall, was to erase the bitter stain that too much living had left upon my soul. The ability to put the worst behind us is the seed from which hope springs, and hope was the one thing I had been denied for far too long. So yes, I sought to purge myself of such petty cruelties and minor evils. Not that I wished to pretend that such things do not exist, but I need not hold on to so many specific instances just to remind me of that.

"Even had I remembered perfectly, though, I could not possibly have drawn the connection before first seeing his face above the ramparts. As it was, I did experience a vague stir of recollection then, but I was unable to say why. Your friend Fare is quite remarkable, but even she needs time to sift through the millennia of detritus that has accumulated within my cluttered mind."

Ragnarr, though momentarily confused by this extra character who had somehow slipped into the conversation, nevertheless pushed quickly past that and drove straight back to the matter at hand. "Do you remember or don't you?" he asked with a snarl.

"I do now."

"Then by all that is holy, I demand that you give back what you took from me! Return my memories this instant, or so help me, I will… I'll… I'll…" The fog of his fury was so intense, and his current position so tenuous, that he could not find his way through to the end of the sentence.

"If you believe that whatever threat you are attempting to make could in any way frighten me, then allow me to correct that mistake now and save us both a great deal of time. It would hardly make any difference anyway, for you see, I cannot give you what you are asking."

"Are you that vindictive?" he asked, completely immune to the irony in his question. "First you do this to me just because I took a shot at a bear and now, all these years later, you will continue to punish me for that same transgression? Oh, what a noble mentor you have found for yourself, my dearest granddaughter! There was a song the ice harvesters used to sing. It warned all men to, 'Beware the frozen heart.' How right it was! Do you see now? There is nothing but ice left beating within her breast."

"And you have nothing but air between your ears," retorted Skadi, "or else you were not paying any true heed to what I told you. You seem to have heard me say that I will not give you back your memories. That is simply incorrect. I said that I _cannot_ give them back to you, and there is a very simple explanation for that which even a man of your slow wit should be able to understand. For you see...

"I cannot give back to you that which I never took."

Ragnarr's entire face went slack with incomprehension and disbelief. "What? What are you saying? I was there. I know what happened. I know what you told me when you…" Then, some bit of understanding dawned within him. "Do you mean you… you lied?" His stupefaction rapidly gave ground before a stampede of mounting rage. "You LIED?!"

Skadi shook her head. "I did not. I said that I had the power to remove a person's memories. I told you that I would take something very important from you, and that I wanted you to know it was gone but not what I had taken. I said that I wanted our conversation to echo in your mind until the very end of your days. It seems that it has, although not apparently with perfect clarity."

"And yet you claim that you did not take my memories!" Ragnarr shouted. "How is that not a lie?"

"You left the forest that day with all of the memories you had when you entered," Skadi explained. Her face was that of a patient schoolmarm, but something dark flashed deep within her eyes. "What I took from you was nothing so simple or crude as that. I have studied the pathways of memory for countless ages of men, long enough to know that there are things one can lose that are crueler and more insidious by far."

"Stop speaking in riddles, woman! I can't understand your pointless prattle!"

"Can you not?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow. "But you said it yourself only minutes ago. You have been tormented by the knowledge that some part of you was missing. How many nights have you lain awake, combing your memories, desperately trying to find a hole that wasn't there? How often have you wondered whether the man you are now is truly the same person who set off on that hunt so long ago? Do you still not see?

"I told you that you would not remember what you lost, and that was also true because what you lost was not a memory to begin with. I left those pristine and perfect. What I took from you was your faith in your memories. I stripped you of your surety of self, your sense of inviolability, your belief in the trustworthiness of your own mind. After all, what could possibly be of greater value to an arrogant, self-absorbed, unconscionable brute such as yourself? And I did this – all of it – with no magic but that of my words. You contrived to carry out the rest entirely on your own."

"No," he said, his voice suddenly ragged. "No, you're lying. I… I don't believe you. Why should I? What memory did you take from me? Was it from my childhood? Or perhaps a recollection of my dear Marguerite? Yes, that would have to be it. She was the one person in this world I ever loved and the only person who ever loved me in return. You stole something of her from me, I know it! And now, you just don't want to give it back. You aren't done torturing me. You want to continue to watch me suffer and… and…"

Ragnarr watched the peculiar smile appear on the Snow Queen's face. _She's mocking me!_ he thought. _The vile woman enjoys watching me squirm like this. She's a cat playing with her dinner. Well, she'll choke on this morsel if I have anything to say about it!_

But another part of his mind looked out and saw the world differently. _There's sadness in that smile,_ it realized. _Ma_ _lice_ _too,_ _perhaps_ _, but there's more to it than that. There's pity! She feels sorry for us. In her eyes, we're a pathetic child too stubborn to recognize the truth even when it's_ _handed to us on a platter._

 _Truth!_ scoffed the first voice. _What truth? She's a liar. They're all liars._ _What else could you expect from a_ _sorceress_ _who can rewrite people's lives in the blink of an eye? She probably can't even tell the difference between truth and lies anymore._

 _Can we?_ wondered the second, quieter voice. _We would_ _not_ _be able to tell if our memories had changed_ _any more than_ _we_ _would_ _be able to tell if they hadn't._

 _She's toying with me! She wants to confuse me. She's trying to make me to believe that I've spent all these years tormented by something that never really happened. She doesn't want me to know what's real._ _She wants to turn my whole life into a lie._

 _Yes, she told us that much, didn't she? That was the punishment she chose for us: to always wonder and never to know. To be unable to trust anything ever again._ The small, rational core of Ragnarr's mind spoke in tones of bitter sadness. _And she got exactly what she wanted. We blindly handed her her victory because we thought we were fighting an entirely different war._

 _No,_ growled Ragnarr's rage. _No, she hasn't won yet._ _She hasn't defeated me. I will get it back. I will get it all back. Everything that was taken from me. My memories. My kingdom. My life. All of it. I have come too far, come too close. I will not surrender now!_

 _But what can we hope to do? How can we hope to win against her? Against them?_

 _To hell with hope! I left it behind decades ago. Hope is for dreamers. Hope is for those who cannot plan, who cannot_ make _things happen on their own. I, I will do what I have always done. I will find a way. I will take any and every advantage I can lay my hands on. I will fight. I will fight and I will win!_

 _Yes,_ said the other voice, half-resigned, half-determined. _Yes. W_ _e will fight._

Ragnarr did not draw himself up straight, tall, and proud. Instead, he dropped into a crouch, his fingers curled like claws. His lips drew back in a vicious snarl, his eyes blazing with madness. His grizzled, graying hair seemed to bristle like the hackles of a cornered animal. A rumble began deep in his gut and then rose until it filled his lungs, his throat, his nose and mouth, his entire body. When they at last burst forth, the distorted words were barely recognizable as human speech.

"GIVE ME BACK MY MIND!"

The next few seconds devolved into little more than a blur as several things all happened at once. A red-headed figure – out of breath from having run all the way up the mountain trail – crested the last climbing curve in the path and spotted the group where they stood just a few short strides away upon the shelf. She saw Ragnarr's hand dart behind his back and draw a lethal-looking blade from where it had been concealed beneath the waistband of his trousers. She saw her sister directly in the path of danger. She didn't stop to think. She simply put on one final burst of speed and dove.

"Elsa!"

Ragnarr sprang forward, launching himself at Skadi, his knife-hand reaching out toward her slender neck. There was no real thought behind the move, no application of human reason. It was fueled entirely by anger and hatred and an insatiable need to exact revenge for the humiliation he had suffered at her hands. Somehow, a mind clouded by wrath had decided that every wrong, every injustice, every failure would be corrected if only he could introduce that glinting, steel blade to her pretty, pale throat. And when another body threatened to block his path, he paid it only enough attention to shove it aside.

"Witch!"

Anna collided with Elsa, driving them both to the ground. But whereas a queen of ice and snow had no great need to concern herself with sliding on such a slick surface, a frantic, speeding princess was another matter entirely. Anna's momentum continued to carry her forward. Her fingers scrabbled, desperately trying to find some non-existent purchase on the all-too-smooth ice. Her feet swung over the ledge first, with her legs following quickly after. Her eyes were wide as she looked back at Elsa.

"Anna!"

There had been only a few paces separating Ragnarr and Skadi. Had the distance been greater, she might have had more time to think. As it was, she had next to none. Instincts honed over countless hunts were not one of the things she had chosen to forget, however. Those instincts now said that, when a ravening animal is charging directly at you, the key to survival is to not still be occupying the same space when the animal finally reaches it. And so, with an ease and grace that few others could have matched on such a treacherous surface, she stepped to one side at the last possible instant.

"No!"

For all her powers, Elsa's body still reacted automatically like any human's would. Her hand shot out and wrapped around Anna's wrist. Inertia fought momentum and gravity as Elsa was dragged along toward the edge. As Anna's fingers fumbled, trying to reciprocate Elsa's grip on her arm, her torso overbalanced and slid over the lip. With a shocked cry, Anna's terrified face disappeared from sight.

"Hold on! Just hold on!"

Ragnarr attempted to arrest his charge, to turn his feet and come back around for another attack. He had always been a good fighter, and he had stubbornly refused to let his body give up that much to age. Under normal circumstances, he would have been able to plant his lead foot, push off of it, and allow his superior mass to send his opponent toppling over. These were not normal circumstances. As he made to shift his weight, both feet slid out from underneath him. He hit the icy ground hard, forcing the air out of his lungs and sending the blade skittering out of his fingers. But he had fallen too close to the edge. Like Anna, his momentum continued to carry him forward. Unlike Anna, there was no one there reaching out a hand to help him.

"No. No! No-o-o-o-o!"

As Elsa struggled to keep from being pulled over after Anna, she clawed at the ice with her free hand. This turned out to be far more effective for her than it had for either Ragnarr or her sister. Her fingers plunged straight through and caught her, sending a jolt up her arm that nearly made her lose her grip on Anna's wrist. The pain and the success cleared her head, though, and she suddenly remembered who she was and what she could do. Closing her eyes, she called out to the magic. It came to her immediately and flowed down along her arm. As it left her fingertips, it wove itself back and forth, to and fro, all around Anna's body.

The weight that had been causing the muscles in her arm to scream in protest suddenly vanished. Her heart would probably have stopped if she hadn't still been able to feel Anna's wrist within her grasp. Instead, she rolled over onto her back and, in so doing, effortlessly pulled Anna up beside her.

"What happened? Are you two alright?"

A breathless Kristoff, whom Anna had shamefully outdistanced in their race up the mountainside, was suddenly kneeling beside them looking pale and frightened.

"Let me… get back to you… on that," Anna gasped.

But Elsa, who had dragged herself up to a sitting position and from there over onto one knee, was wildly looking about them in every direction. "Ragnarr," she wheezed. "Where's… Ragnarr?" Then she took in Skadi standing at the very point of the shelf and peering down over the brink.

"Is he…?" she asked.

"He has fallen," answered a stolid Skadi. "He will not rise again."

"What? No!"

"Anna..."

"Nobody deserves that, Kristoff! No, not even him. That's… that's awful."

"Yes," agreed Elsa sadly as she rose to her feet. "It truly is." With a regretful wave of her hand, she banished the ice from the ledge.

Accepting Kristoff's offered hand, Anna stood as well. Together, the three moved to join Skadi and, in a gesture that somehow seemed both wrong and yet entirely appropriate, bowed their heads in a respectful silence. After a moment, Anna leaned over to press herself against Kristoff, who in turn wrapped an arm around her and pulled her tightly to him. Her free hand then reached over to entwine with Elsa's.

Their private vigil lingered awkwardly. It wasn't mourning, certainly, but it bore a kinship with that emotion. It was the sense that comes upon most people who find themselves witness to sudden and unforeseen death. To see a life pass from this world is to be reminded of one's own mortality. Our natural desire is to seek comfort in those closest to us – friends, family, the ones we love and hold dear.

"We should get back," Elsa said, almost embarrassed to be disturbing the stillness. "Arendelle has been through far too much lately. It's going to need our help to put things right again."

Anna lifted her eyes and let her gaze fall upon the familiar shapes of the castle at the head of the harbor below. She sighed. "It'll be good to be back home. I mean, through the front gates this time. I think even I've had enough adventures to last for a while. I'm looking forward to things getting back to normal as much as anyone."

A bone-deep weariness suddenly settled upon her and she yawned widely. "It seems like forever since I last slept in my own bed. You both have to be exhausted, too. I'm sure Sven will enjoy a good night's sleep in the warm stables for a change. And Olaf can curl up down in the ice room like usual. After all this, even he might sleep tonight."

Elsa had already turned away and was just starting the descent down the mountain trail when Anna's words hit her. She stopped dead in her tracks. Her proud shoulders slowly folded inward and she slumped heavily against the cliff face.

"By the way," Anna continued, giving the castle one last fond look before she herself turned to go, "you didn't happen to see Olaf, did you? Only we got separated during the escape, and… Elsa? What's wrong?" Seeing her sister's distress, she hurried to her side.

Elsa had done everything that anyone could possibly have expected of her. She had been strong, brave, fearless, mighty. She'd stood tall in the face of terrible odds. She had given her all in defense of her kingdom and her people. She had bested a small army and the madman who had tried to steal her throne. But now, the last of her enemies had been defeated. None who stood with her on this frozen ridge of rock was looking to her for leadership as their queen. In that instant, she did not have to be anybody but who she was.

She was Elsa of Arendelle. And she was weeping.

"Elsa?" Anna asked, her voice quavering with worry.

"Olaf." The word was a sob. "Olaf, he's… he's… Anna, h-he's… gone! He… Ragnarr, he…"

She could not finish. Clutching Anna's shoulders, she buried her face in her sister's chest. A look of shock and benumbed grief spread across Anna's face. Tears began to spill down her cheeks as she held Elsa's shaking body. As one, they slowly dropped to their knees. Both were only dimly aware of Kristoff coming to kneel beside them, gathering them into his arms.

Together, they mourned their fallen friend. Together, they cried.

And to one side, Skadi stood a wordless watch over them all.


	42. Coming Home

There were no cheers, no shouts of triumphant welcome. As Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, and Skadi walked through the capital, they were greeted only by nervous whispers and the looks of frightened faces peering out of windows and open doorways. Here and there, small knots of people were gathered on street corners to engage in furtive speculation about what had, what was, and what was about to. Their already hushed voices trailed off completely as they watched the foursome pass. All told, it felt less like a homecoming and more like a funeral.

Arendelle was dispirited, its people exhausted. Simple truths they had thought to be solid and unshakable had turned to quicksand beneath their very feet, and the void left behind by those broken certainties had been filled by one of the few things that could travel faster than Skadi's flying sled.

Rumor had raced from door to door and street to street. What the king had said. What their queen had done. What strange and fearful company had returned again from the north. A year earlier, it all would have been so fantastical that the storytellers would have been laughed at or told that it was too early in the day to be that deep in the bottle. Now there was little left that the average citizen would still consider unbelievable. At the same time, they had all been made uncomfortably aware of how many secrets their quiet little kingdom had harbored for so very long. The populace was left in a confused limbo: willing to believe almost anything, yet unsure what they could trust.

The notion of a battle being fought so close to their homes for control of the castle and of Arendelle itself was something none would ever have imagined happening in their lifetimes. The details that had circulated regarding the fight had been both contradictory and inadequate, raising more questions than they answered. One thing people did feel reasonably confident about, however, was that one did not simply walk up to the queen and ask for answers. Such things simply were not done

But that did not mean they had abandoned hope of getting those answers.

Elsa and her companions were all acutely aware of the uncertain crowd that trailed behind them. It grew with every passing step as people slipped out of their front doors or stole in from side streets and alleyways. Whatever else this day had been, it was undeniably momentous, and few things went hand-in-hand with momentous days quite as readily as proclamations and speeches. For once, no one seemed bored by that prospect.

Nearly the entire population of the capital had apparently joined the procession by the time it reached the docks. As they drew near the castle, several figures could be seen exiting the gates and crossing the bridge to greet them. The four stopped just at the landward end and awaited the arrival of their welcoming committee. Colonel Holberg, who reached them first, wasted no time on niceties.

"Ragnarr," he asked immediately. "Where is he?"

But Elsa held up a hand to beg his patience. She spared a weak but reassuring smile for Kai and Gerda, who both had come up behind Fritz. They had stopped several wary paces back, however, and Elsa couldn't miss the anxious looks they were both directing at Skadi. Her heart sank. Amidst everything else that had been happening, the shared past between these three had completely slipped her mind. She fervently wished that she had the time to explain things to them privately, but the public had other ideas just then and were not demonstrating signs of prolonged patience. Reluctantly, she turned to face the waiting throng.

She felt more weary in both body and mind than she could ever remember having been before in her entire life. She was so enervated that she had to think for a moment before she could remember how to summon and direct the flow of magic for what she wanted to do. A small podium of ice finally materialized in front of her. It was plain and simple, little more than a boxy rectangle with a single step that took her to the top of the platform. From there, she looked out over the sea of faces, all of which looked expectantly back.

"Ragnarr," she announced solemnly, "is dead." Even before Fritz had given voice to it, she'd known that question would be foremost on everyone's minds. The tide of murmurs and muttering that swept over the press of people only confirmed as much.

"How?" a voice called out. It might be deemed uncouth to accost the queen face-to-face in order to satisfy one's curiosity, but the same thing became surprisingly easy when one's face was hopelessly lost among the crowd.

"Did you kill him?"

While Elsa's pronouncement had engendered much whispered conversation, that solitary question seemed to suck all sound from the air. A few among those assembled looked around, trying to determine which of their neighbors had dared such impertinence. Most, however, were now more fixated on Elsa than ever, unsure even in their own minds whether they were eager for the answer or dreading it.

"He tried to attack Skadi, who you know as the Snow Queen, and..."

"And _she_ killed him?"

"Skadi? You mean like the goddess Skadi?"

"That's who kidnapped Princess Anna?"

"Yes," Elsa began. "I mean, no. No, Skadi didn't kill Ragnarr. He slipped on ice, you see, and he..."

"Ice? Ice that she put there?"

"So it was her fault!"

"No!" protested Elsa. "The ice was already there. Ragnarr came at her with a knife, but he slipped and fell over the cliff, and..."

"And you just let him fall?" a particularly caustic voice demanded. "You can fly. I saw you. Didn't you try to save him?"

"I… I was busy saving my sister. I didn't…"

"Why did you bring the Snow Queen back?" This was someone else, someone who sounded more frightened than angry. "She attacked the castle. She kidnapped Princess Anna. She… she… she nearly froze me solid."

Jannika! Elsa's tired mind recognized the voice as belonging to one of the civilians that Skadi had attacked as a diversion. "She wouldn't really have hurt you," Elsa tried to assure her. "She was only trying to keep me distracted while she…"

"While she flew off with our princess!"

"But now she's back and fighting at your side?"

"Or are you fighting at hers?"

"We fought together," Elsa clarified as she desperately tried, in spite of her exhaustion, to regain control of the situation.

"How do we know that's true? How do you know?"

"Wh-what?" she stammered, feeling that control slipping ever further away.

"She can take people's memories, can't she? Play with their minds?"

"Yeah! It sounds like you've forgotten she's Arendelle's enemy!" Too many heads were nodding. Too many mouths were voicing agreement.

"But she's not," Elsa tried to explain to the people before her. Only they weren't just people anymore. They were teetering on the tipping point. It would only take the tiniest push. A single step. One wrong word and the crowd would vanish, replaced by something else entirely. They were dangerously close to becoming a mob.

"Now just hold on a minute!"

The disquieted rumbling died away as Anna bounded up onto the platform to stand beside her sister. Taking Elsa's hand, she squeezed it in a show of support, then looked out over the packed square. She swallowed, gathered her courage, and then began to speak.

"My mother told me something once. Well, she told me lots of things, of course, like how a princess shouldn't ever fight. Or run with a sword. Or climb trees. Or laugh so hard that she snorts milk out of her nose." That drew a number of smiles and even few quiet chuckles, but far more faces remained stony and unmoved, still waiting to decide on which side of the line they would finally fall.

"Obviously, I didn't always listen that well to everything she said, but there's one thing that I do remember very clearly. She once told me that everything changes. 'Everything changes and people are no exception.' I was only about ten at the time, so I'm not sure I really understood what she meant back then. But I think I do now.

"So much has changed lately, hasn't it? Arendelle crowned a new queen and we were all so happy. Then we found out what Elsa could do, and all that changed. I know it scared a lot of you. Some of you are probably still scared. But so was Elsa. She was terrified because she didn't know how to control her powers, and the last thing she wanted was for anyone to get hurt because of her.

"Then things changed. Elsa found control and was able to undo all that she had done. That was when the people of Arendelle recognized that their own fears lived within her heart as well. She was one of you, one of us, just another person who makes mistakes like everyone else. So you found it within yourselves to forgive her.

"Then the Snow Queen came and it all changed again. I was gone, Elsa was gone, and there was suddenly more magic in the world than you had dreamed. But before you could deal with that, Ragnarr arrived, and _he_ changed everything. I'm sure he told you all sorts of things, too. Now he's gone but we're back and telling you more things. And we brought Skadi with us, and it's all so incredibly confusing, and I understand how hard this whole thing must be to understand because I barely understand it all myself!

"But here's the thing. We want you to understand. All of you. We're not going to hide anything or keep any secrets. We will tell you everything: the whole story, or at least all of it that we know. But that doesn't change the fact that it's all so… so complicated. Which is another thing that my parents always told me that I didn't truly understand until I grew up. So it might not all make sense the first time. Or the second. But that's okay, because we'll keep retelling it until it does. It's just going to take time.

"In the end, though, it all comes down to what I said in the beginning. Everything changes, including people. Nina!" Anna caught the eye of a girl who'd squeezed her way to the very front of the crowd. "Remember when we first met? Remember how you hid behind my skirts when Hille came to collect you?" The girl blushed pinkly but giggled a little all the same. "Now, you won't hide from anyone.

"Peder, Saul!" Anna called out to two middle-aged men. "You remember Lennart, don't you? He used to work with you in the royal stables until he had to go back home to tend his family farm. That was when Josef was brought on to take his place. Now the stables are fully staffed again. So much has changed, but it was all for the best, wasn't it?

"Karina, you became a mother! I miss seeing you in the kitchens every day, but I can hardly blame you. Little Myra and Ivan are both so adorable! And Una… Well, okay, you've been working at the post office forever, but that means you see almost everyone at one time or another. How much change have you seen firsthand in your time there?"

Anna lifted her gaze to take in everyone, not just one or two at a time. "You see? Change can be frightening, but it doesn't have to be bad. Elsa has changed. I've changed. And yes, so has Skadi. She's different now than she was before, and we'll explain that too. That is, if you'll let us. All we ask is that you give us that chance. So…

" _Will_ you let us?"

She waited. Apparently, everyone else was doing the same – waiting for some other voice to offer up the answer.

"But," one man began, sounding far less certain than had the earlier agitators, "Ragnarr said that the Snow Queen could alter people's memories. How do we know…?"

"That our memories weren't changed?" Anna finished for him. "You don't, because I'll tell you right now that mine were. They were erased completely. I forgot everyone and everything I ever knew. I couldn't remember any of you. I couldn't even remember who I was."

"The Snow Queen did that to you?" asked a young woman, aghast.

"Yes, she did," Anna confirmed with a nod. "And you know what? I forgave her. Once I heard her story, after I learned all that she's been through, I forgave her. I think I would even have tried to do the same for my grandfather, if only he'd given me the chance. So please, don't judge her too harshly until you've taken the time to listen to all that we have to tell you. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but don't you owe it to yourselves to at least have all the facts before you make up your minds? Who knows? Maybe you'll see in her some of the same things you see in yourselves, the same things you saw in Elsa that made you decide to give her a second chance. And doesn't everyone deserve that much at least?"

Throughout the crowd, people exchanged glances. Slowly, the glances began to turn into shrugs. Then the shrugs gave way to nods. Eventually someone, spokesperson for the masses by simple virtue of being the first to put into words that which all had silently agreed upon, called out.

"We will listen, Your Highness."

Anna smiled. "That's all we ask."

Moving to the front of the podium, she lowered herself until she was sitting, legs dangling over the edge. With a raised hand, she invited Elsa to join her, and the Queen of Arendelle came to sit at her sister's side. Anna then looked over her shoulder and, with a twist of her head, beckoned to Kristoff and Skadi. Obviously reluctant to place himself at the center of so much attention, Kristoff nevertheless climbed up and then sat down on Anna's right. Skadi, however, demurred with a shake of her head, and Anna decided not to press the issue. Perhaps it would be best to let their tale play out before they attempted her formal introduction to the people.

"Well then, let's get started," Anna said brightly, "and when we reach the end, hopefully we'll all know more than we do now. But… where to begin?" She looked first to her left and then to her right, for she could not tell the whole story on her own.

Elsa's brow was creased with thought. "I think," she said slowly and carefully, "that it starts in a large town so full of houses and people that there was not room enough for everyone to have even a little garden, and so most people had to make due with simple flower pots. But in this town, there lived two children who had a garden somewhat larger than just a pot, and though they were not brother and sister, they cared for each other as if they were."

On the bridge behind them, Gerda gasped and grabbed hold of Kai's arm. Though somewhat shaken himself at hearing his own childhood story told in such a setting, he still managed to smile down at his lifelong friend and quietly patted her hand in reassurance. Then they, like the rest of Arendelle, gave their full attention over to the unfolding tale.

It was a story of deeds both brave and wicked. Of kings and queens, princesses and princes, common folk and gods. It spoke of memories stolen and of others that refused to fade. Of ice and snow. Of sunny days under canopies of flowers. There were trolls and crows, bears and reindeer. There was music and laughter, but also tears and great sorrow. Victories were won. Loved ones were lost. Parents and children, brothers and sisters, friends and family. Castles and kingdoms. Caves and criminals. Vengeance sought. Justice found. It was a sprawling epic full of incredibly powerful magic. It was an intimate tale about the redeeming power of love. And by the end, it was entirely impossible to tell the two apart.

It was while Anna and Kristoff were explaining how they had managed to rescue the prisoners from the dungeons that Skadi heard someone clear their throat just behind her. She turned to find that it was in fact two people standing there, both of them looking nervous but determined.

"Skadi, is it?" asked the woman, who quickly hurried on without waiting for a reply. "You don't know me. We've never met. But I've known of you nearly my entire life. When I was young, you see… That is, when I was a just a girl, I… Well, I…"

"What my friend is trying to say," offered the man, "is that… you and I _have_ met, although it was a very long time ago. At least it was for me, although for you, it must seem like only yesterday."

"Yesterday seems like yesterday," corrected Skadi, though her tone was quite affable. "And fifty years ago seems like fifty years ago." The two figures started at that odd choice of phrase, but before they could react further, Skadi continued. "I take it then that you are Kai, are you not? And you must be Gerda."

"That's right," said Gerda, rallying herself and straightening proudly.

"Ah. I wondered if I would meet you. For you see, I heard some of your story from Elsa earlier, though I did not hear it in its entirety until just now." She considered Gerda gravely. "The bravery you showed on your friend's behalf at such a tender age is truly astonishing. I have known many a mighty warrior who would not have attempted what you did – although to be fair, most warriors do tend to compensate for their great strength with an appalling lack of common sense and wisdom. Still, that you were able to track me all the way back to my palace entirely on your own was a feat worthy of the greatest hunters your race has ever produced. Indeed, few of my people could have done any better. For that alone if nothing else, I salute you." And, to Gerda's everlasting astonishment, Skadi proceeded to bow her respect. Then she turned to Kai, and surprising them both, looked distinctly uncomfortable in her own turn.

"To you," she said contritely, "I fear I owe a great deal more. I am sorry, truly and deeply sorry, for what I did to you. I was not at the time, nor in the years that followed, but I am now. Over the centuries, even though I could not lose any of my memories, I am afraid that I lost something else instead. I suppose one would have to call it my humanity, for lack of a better word. I became so angry, so callous and bitter that I stopped caring about the lives of others. Oh, I convinced myself I still did because I had promised myself to never kill another, which I suppose proves that self-delusion is not the exclusive purview of mankind. Now though, thanks to Elsa's strength and Anna's kind heart, I feel like I am finally starting to find my true self again, and that self is horribly ashamed by the things I have done.

"I will not ask for your forgiveness, because I am not certain that what I did should be forgiven. But I offer my sincerest apologies for what I did to you. To both of you. As for what I did to Elsa and her family… She has suffered much pain and great loss that I cannot undo. Yet whatever I can do for her now, I shall. On that, I also give you my word."

Kai turned to look at the seated backs of the two sisters, who were finally approaching the end of their narrative. "Life has not always been overly kind to them," he said thoughtfully, "but they have weathered it all better than many others might have. They are both remarkable young women."

"Of that, there is no doubt," agreed Skadi, following his gaze.

"And though we may have helped to teach them when they were growing up," added Gerda, "they've since taught us a thing or two as well."

"Absolutely," said Kai. "Including the importance of not turning your back on someone just because they once made a terrible mistake when they were angry or afraid. No matter how much they might now believe they deserve it."

Skadi turned back to fix them both with a startled look of surprise.

"We came over here," Gerda explained with a maternal smile, "to tell you that we finally understand. And that we do forgive you."

Skadi, Snow Queen, ancient Norse goddess of winter, suddenly found herself rendered speechless. She continued to stare at the two old friends, not quite believing what she had heard. At last, her lips moved, and though no sound came out, the words were read easily enough.

 _Thank you._

The three suddenly became aware of a hush that extended beyond their own little circle, although if the act of mulling-it-all-over were to be accompanied by a sound, the air would have been full of it. Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff had finished at last and were waiting to see how their audience would respond. It had been a long tale, and many of the listeners were now sitting upon the plaza's cold stones, looking for all the world like a classroom full of children at story time. Which might also explain why a child was the first of them all to reach a definitive conclusion.

"That was a weally good stowy," said a young lad as he looked up at his mother beside him. "Can we heawr it again?"

And with that, the tension shattered. Laughter, nervous or otherwise, brought people back to their senses. They began to rise, helping others to their feet as they did so. Chattering conversations formed among the knots of friends and neighbors. Lively debates broke out over this aspect or that particular detail. If one hadn't known better, it would have been easy to believe that they were all engaged in the dissection of some well-played sporting event rather than the hidden history of their kingdom over the last three or four generations.

In groups both big and small, the crowd began to turn away, heading back toward their homes and businesses. As they did so, however, they each first turned toward the dais where the storytellers had also risen to their feet. Men doffed their hats and bent into courteous bows. Women lowered their eyes and lifted the hems of their skirts in brief curtseys. Young children waved goodbye. Some faces wore smiles. A few still frowned. But most simply appeared to be thinking. Many looked back over their shoulders as they left, trying to catch a parting glimpse of the now-somewhat-less-mysterious Snow Queen.

"You realize that you'll be retelling that story, in whole or in part, for years to come, don't you?"

Anna turned around to grin down at Gerda. "I'll tell it every single day if that's what it takes to make sure everyone understands."

"Be careful of saying that too loudly, Your Highness," advised Kai. "There are some who I think would be more than willing to take you up on that offer."

"But there are also some who will no doubt share a mindset with the Duke of Weselton," Elsa said, sounding worried.

"Weaselton," Kai corrected. "Duke of Weaselton." The old joke at least managed to lift the corners of Elsa's mouth a little. "And if I may be so bold as to point out, Your Majesty, you look positively exhausted."

"Well, I should think so!" exclaimed Gerda. "Traveling all the way to Lapland and back. Rescuing poor souls like us. Fighting armies. I'm amazed any of you are still on your feet! You all need nice, warm baths; a change into fresh, clean clothes; and a good, hot meal."

At the mention of clothing, Elsa looked down and realized that she was still wearing the armor she had worn during the battle. With a sigh, she flicked her hands as though brushing flecks of lint off her garments. The plates of ice fell away in a soft flurry of flakes, replaced with a simple gown better suited to her station. Its shade of blue was much darker than what she normally wore, however – a somber color for a somber day.

"I wish I could, Gerda, but there's still too much that needs to be done. Kai, would you please see to it that men are sent to retrieve Ragnarr's body? He should be given a proper funeral. Not a large state affair, perhaps, but the man was king after all. He deserves that much respect. I suspect that Aunt Primrose will want to attend at the very least. We will lay him to rest on Memorial Hill."

"Not beside your parents, surely!" Gerda exclaimed, sounding scandalized.

Elsa shook her head. "No. Beside his queen."

Kai nodded. "Of course, Your Majesty." But he did not rush off, instead waiting for any additional instructions… and to satisfy himself that his queen would not immediately collapse from her obvious fatigue.

"Skadi," Elsa said, turning to the woman, "you are more than welcome to stay here in the palace with us for a while if you so wish."

"I think not. Your courtesy is appreciated, of course, but I believe it would be better for all if I made myself rather more inconspicuous for a while. I believe you mentioned something about an ice palace?"

"Yes, on the North Mountain. I can arrange to have someone show you the way."

"Sven and I will do it," volunteered Kristoff. "Rohl can come, too. I'll stop and introduce him to my family… er, my other family…" He glanced at Anna with a small smile. "…on the way back. I'm sure they'll have plenty they'll want to talk about."

"Well, will _you_ at least let me get you a meal and a change of clothes?" Gerda asked Anna in mild exasperation.

"Oh, absolutely," Anna replied with an enthusiastic nod. "As many as you can, actually. I'm sure the rest of the people who were trapped down in the dungeons will really appreciate them after all they've had to go through."

Gerda tried to scowl at her overly-conscientious charges, but she couldn't sustain it for much more than a second. In the end, she gave in with a proud chuckle. "I'm sure they will, Your Highness."

Most of the group moved off then: Kai to fulfill his orders, Anna accompanying Gerda to help with the preparations, and Kristoff to track down Sven and a sled he might borrow. So it was that Elsa and Skadi were, for a brief minute, alone together at the head of the bridge.

"Be sure that Kristoff introduces you to Marshmallow before he leaves," Elsa advised. "He can be a bit overprotective, and he isn't always terribly polite with strangers, but once he knows you're a friend, you couldn't ask for a better sentry or bodyguard. I'll come and see how you're settling in as soon as I can, just to make sure you have everything you need and whatnot. And I don't want you to get too lonely again, either. I'm afraid Marshmallow isn't the best conversationalist, so…"

"You need not worry about me. I have lived on my own for centuries. I am quite certain I will be able to survive a few days, perhaps even as much as a week, without company."

Elsa did a double take. She had heard Skadi expressing her exceedingly dry wit before, but this was the closest she had ever heard the woman come to cracking a joke. Had she caught the tail end of a smirk for just an instant there, or was she simply imagining things? Ah, well. It hardly mattered in the face of so many other more important matters.

"It's just that I'm going to have my hands full for a while," she explained. "The kingdom has been turned on its head, and it won't be easy getting everything back where it belongs. I'm afraid we'll be dealing with the aftermath of this winter's events for months if not years to come."

Skadi lifted her chin and gazed up at the heavens. There were only a few high, thin clouds to mar the otherwise pristine sky. Its pale, watery blue was nearly a match for her own traveling cloak. The oppressive gray that had dominated since the end of autumn was nowhere to be seen.

"As your sister said, all things must change. Every war is followed by another chance for peace. Every time of peace is fraught with problems of its own. But neither war nor peace nor problems last forever. Sooner or later, all things shall end and new ones begin." She drew a deep, luxuriant breath in through her nose, tasting the salty sea air in the back of her throat.

"Even the seasons are changing," she said resolutely. "Winter draws to a close. Soon, it will be springtime again."

• • •

"Yes?" Elsa called in response to the knock. The study door opened a fraction to allow a ruddy face to peer into the room. "Ah, Vendel. Yes, do come in, please. Kai and I were just finishing up. We'll only be a moment."

Vendel Dyrdahl slipped into the room and stood quietly just inside the door, choosing to remain standing until queen and steward finished their business. While he waited, he tugged yet again on the hem of his jacket and ran his hands down the lapels, trying to encourage it and the shirt underneath to fall in a more flattering fashion. He had shed an appreciable bit of weight during his time in the dungeons so that few of his clothes fit him properly anymore. So far, he'd been unable to squeeze in a visit to his preferred tailor to inquire about alterations or perhaps even the purchase of a new outfit or two. That this ill-fitting ensemble was the best he'd been able to piece together to answer the queen's summons embarrassed him to no end. Ah, but there was no help for it. He would simply have to make do as best he could.

He watched now as Kai bent over the queen's desk to examine a sheet of paper that she was holding up for him to see. The steward was nodding as she mutely pointed to several apparently important passages. Those two had known each other so long that such unspoken shorthand was second nature to them. Kai had held a similar position of trust with Elsa's father, King Agdar, and as such had been one of the few who had seen the then-princess with any regularity when she had finally crept out of her room to learn the finer points of leadership at her father's elbow. Even during his tenure as regent after Agdar's untimely death, Dyrdahl had never enjoyed such a relationship with the heir to the throne. To this day, he still envied Kai's close access.

"Understand?" Elsa asked when they reached the bottom of the page.

"Yes, Your Majesty. I'll see to it immediately." Taking the paper, he turned on his heel and walked quickly toward the door, nodding briefly to Dyrdahl as he hurried past.

"Have a seat," Elsa said, gesturing to a well-padded chair just in front of the heavy wooden desk that had once been her father's. With a short bow of thanks, he moved forward and slipped gratefully onto the generous cushions. Then he looked across the desk at the queen who looked back at him in return, each appearing to silently size up the other.

"You look well, Your Majesty," he finally said. "It would seem that a few nights' sleep in your own bed has been a wonderful restorative."

"Has it?" she asked absently. "I hadn't noticed. I've been unable to turn in until late each night, you see, and I've woken early every morning. If sleep has somehow managed to find me in between, I haven't felt much of it." She rubbed at her forehead with the fingers of her left hand. "But I ought to ask how you are doing, Vendel. Because, if you'll forgive me for saying so, you look nearly as awful as I feel."

He attempted to turn his grimace into a self-effacing smile. He had taken great care in grooming himself before coming to the palace this morning, but there were some things that no amount of fastidious primping could hide. "A problem not unlike yours, I'm afraid," he admitted. "While my responsibilities are nowhere near as demanding as Your Majesty's, I find that I have not been sleeping well ever since… Well, for these last several nights."

"I shouldn't wonder." Again she eyed him as though she was trying to guess his measurements for one of those new suits he'd been contemplating.

"But my problems are not yours, Your Majesty," he said bracingly. "If there is anything I might do to help alleviate some of the strain you are under, you know that you have only to ask."

Elsa inclined her head in acknowledgment of the offer. "That is very kind of you, of course. And since you mention it, there actually is one small thing on which I could use your input."

"Ah?" He had thought there might be. Why else would she have called him in here for a private meeting like this? He watched as she sat back in her chair and reached down to open one of the drawers on the side of her desk. A second later, her hand emerged holding another sheet of paper. This one was not crisp and new like the one Kai had left with. Indeed, it was covered in crease marks, as though someone had crumpled it into a ball only to then change their mind and flatten it back out again. Elsa laid it upon the desk and slid it toward him. Reaching forward, he picked it up.

A moment's glance at the letter was all it took to turn his florid face ashen.

"That is your handwriting, isn't it, Vendel?"

He tried to swallow, but nearly choked instead.

"I'm fairly certain that it is," Elsa continued. "After all, I've seen it often enough on proposals and proclamations you have written. Your signature has appeared on countless shipment invoices that have crossed this desk. I never expected to read words such as those written by your hand, however. You can imagine my surprise when I found that tucked away amid the other papers Ragnarr left behind."

Dyrdahl's tongue darted out of his mouth in a rather unsuccessful attempt at moistening lips that had suddenly gone completely dry.

"Details of troop deployments. Watch rotation schedules for the Palace Guard. Conditions of the passes leading into the capital. Expected arrival and departure times of various ships. A remarkably thorough inventory of both the palace and garrison armories. Concise but revealing profiles of the commanders in charge of both detachments. The list goes on, finally culminating with a rather detailed description of the events surrounding Skadi's first visit to the castle, including the wounding of Colonel Holberg, my sudden departure, even a brief summary of her earlier dealings with Kai and Gerda. I'm sure you'll agree that it's a most curious collection of information. Most curious indeed.

"Exactly the sort of information, it seems to me, that would be invaluable to someone making plans to seize Arendelle by force."

A collar that had felt far too loose a scant minute earlier suddenly seemed to be tightly constricting Dyrdahl's windpipe. A strangled gurgle was all that resulted from his first attempt at speech. Coughing to try to clear his suddenly blocked throat, he tried again.

"Your Majesty…"

"I don't want to hear a word from you right now," Elsa warned him as the temperature in the room dropped several degrees, "except in direct answer to my questions. I believe I've asked you one already. Is that or is that not your handwriting?"

There was no point in denying it. Bowing his head over the paper, Dyrdahl closed his eyes. "It is, Your Majesty."

He could feel the queen's eyes boring into the top of his skull. "How long?" she asked. "How long were you spying for Ragnarr? Is this why you tried so hard to undermine the Palace Guard while you were regent?"

He didn't look up. He merely nodded.

"That long?" Elsa's voice broke with disbelief. "My father trusted you! It was his recommendation that you be appointed regent should anything ever happen to him. And this… this is how you repaid that trust? Why?"

"There is no excuse I can give, Your Majesty..."

"I'm not interested in excuses. I want an explanation. I suggest you come up with one quickly."

His mind was racing, but in all the wrong directions.

"Was this about my father? Did you have some reason to harbor a grudge against him?" Elsa's face, already angry, suddenly took on a dangerous intensity. "If you had any part, played any role, took even the slightest action that in some way might have contributed to my parents' deaths…"

That brought his head up sharply. "No, Your Majesty!" he exclaimed. "I would never!"

The look he got back made it clear that, if he expected her to believe his protests, he had better begin presenting alternatives immediately.

"I'm afraid it was far simpler than that," he said dully. "I've always been an ambitious man. That's hardly a secret. It was what drove me in my youth to travel the continent, finding promising businesses that no one else would touch but in which I saw great potential. I would buy up a controlling interest, take over management, and work on them until they became the money making machines I knew they could be. Then I would sell to new ownership for a tidy profit, which I would pour into my next venture. The risks grew with each one, but so too did the potential gains. By the time I returned home to Arendelle, my stocks and my earnings had set me up with enough wealth to live out the rest of my days in enviable comfort. I had fallen in love with a beautiful young woman during my travels. We were married, I bought her the best home money could buy, and together we looked to settle down.

"But I was restless. Bored even. I craved a new challenge to conquer. So I decided to take a short break, assess my options, and then set out again with my new bride in search of whatever that challenge might be. That was when your father sent for me to ask my advice about how best to deal with this one man with whom I had done business in the past. As I recall, he'd been credited as selling the finest sailcloth in all of Europe, and His Majesty was looking to make a large purchase on behalf of the Royal Navy. Well, one thing led to another and before I knew it, I had become part of King Agdar's council of advisors."

Dyrdahl almost smiled in fond recollection of those bygone days before he suddenly remembered the gravity of his present situation. Guilt and anxiety reclaimed their hold on his features, and he continued with greatly increased humility.

"Though it was a direction I had never before considered, politics turned out to be exactly the challenge I'd been looking for. I reveled in it. Though I was only an advisor, it still gave me my first taste of real power. My words could and did help to shape policy. My recommendations moved more than just inventory and raw materials. I was, albeit indirectly and in mostly small ways, affecting the movements of kingdoms and nations. Finally, my ambition had been given a mountain worth climbing.

"Not that I had any designs on the crown, of course," he added hastily. "Not being of royal blood, I knew it was well beyond me. That still left plenty of room in which to rise, however, and I set about doing just that. I worked to make myself invaluable to the king, an endeavor in which my connections abroad helped immensely. I studied. I listened. I learned. And when I saw an opportunity to advance, I did whatever was necessary to seize it."

"Whatever was necessary?" Elsa asked, filling the phrase with ominous portent.

"Within reason," Dyrdahl quickly amended.

"That reason being your personal crusade for power."

"Perhaps, but you cannot deny that Arendelle benefited from my efforts! The kingdom prospered even during those long years when the castle gates were closed to the world."

"That's funny," she said, though her voice could not possibly have been more devoid of humor. "I thought you were explaining your reasons for betraying that very kingdom."

"Erm, yes, well..."

"I'm waiting."

Dyrdahl swallowed. "Wh-when your father called me into this very study to inform me that he planned to put my name forth as his recommendation for regent in the event that anything should happen to both him and Queen Idun… Well, I was shocked, honestly. Honored, of course, but shocked. I thanked him profusely for his show of faith in me. It meant that I had reached the point where he trusted me above all his other advisors. I had finally climbed to the top of my mountain, but never in a thousand lifetimes did I imagine that it would ever amount to anything more than that.

"Until it did."

"And suddenly, you had the kind of power you had thought to be forever beyond your grasp." Elsa spoke as though something supremely distasteful was clinging to her tongue.

"Yes," he admitted. "I could not have expected it, would never have wished for it to come to me in such a fashion, but there it was. Even as I took it on, though, I knew it was only a passing thing. In three years time, you would come of age and take up the orb and scepter. In three years, everything would go back to the way it had been.

"Except that it soon became obvious that things would not go back. You were not your father. You listened to me, like you listened to your other advisors. _Exactly_ like you listened to your other advisors. I was regent and had been the most trusted member of your father's council, but that seemingly meant nothing. The one person you confided in, the only one you ever seemed to truly trust, was Kai."

Elsa looked stunned. "That's the reason? That's why you betrayed your queen, your kingdom, and your people?"

Dyrdahl shrugged miserably. "At the time, I felt it was the final demonstration that you were simply unsuitable to be queen. You were frightened of everything, shying away from your own shadow. You tried to act poised and dignified, but any loud noise made you flinch. Even when you called a meeting of the council, it was plain to us all how anxious you always were for it to end. And then you chose Kai – a man of no great birth or wealth or standing of any kind – as your chief aide simply because you were slightly less frightened of him than of the rest of us! I didn't see how such a person on the throne could possibly lead Arendelle to anything but ruin."

"And so you decided a coup was the only option? To replace me with a man so contemptible that his own son had seen him banished from the kingdom?"

"What other choices did I have? Matters of succession had to be observed if the new ruler was to have any legitimacy whatsoever. I knew Princess Anna would never go along with any plan to supplant you, especially since it would have been three more years before she herself came of age. And aside from Her Majesty Queen Primrose of Corona, Ragnarr was the closest member of the Royal House of Arendelle still alive. So yes, I reached out to my connections on the continent and began to track him down."

"So why did the two of you wait so long to make your move? Why wait until after the coronation? Why not strike while you still remained in power?"

"It took months before I was able to find him, and even more time after that to convince him of my sincerity. Then we needed to formulate a plan. I knew that we could not expect the support of the Arendelle military. Their loyalty to your father ran deep and, through their sympathy, they had extended that loyalty to you. The Palace Guard posed a particular problem. We knew that he who controls the castle controls the kingdom, but taking it would have been nigh impossible; the Guard had become too formidable under Colonel Holberg's command. So I had to arrange for its members to be dispersed far and wide. Meanwhile, Ragnarr worked on his end to assemble an invasion force as quickly as he could, though even with help from my connections, that took time as well.

"But neither of us had anticipated that someone else might also be contriving to seize Arendelle's crown at exactly the same time. Prince Hans swept right in and charmed everyone, including your sister. The inexperienced soldiers I'd managed to place within the Guard turned out to be so woefully deficient, they were willing to blindly follow his orders without question despite the fact that he held absolutely no standing within the kingdom. They were even ready to execute you by his command!"

"And would that have bothered you?" Elsa asked. "Revolutions do tend to be rather bloody matters, after all, especially for the leaders of the losing side."

"Look, I knew that fighting would be nearly inevitable, but that was why I did what I did. I reasoned that, if a weakened Palace Guard was totally overwhelmed, Ragnarr's men would be able to sweep in and take the palace with minimal resistance and bloodshed. And I never wanted to see you hurt. I just didn't want to see you become queen.

"Of course, the revelations on Coronation Day of just what you were capable of changed everything. I began to have second thoughts, but by then, it was too late. Ragnarr had everything he needed to ruin me forever if I didn't continue to cooperate. He threatened both me and my wife unless I put him in touch with a couple of clever fellows who'd once worked for me and who had some experience with engineering… er, effective countermeasures for unusual situations. Once those were complete, it was just a matter of transporting men and materiel into Arendelle through gaps in our border defenses, and then…" Dyrdahl shrugged expressively, but when his shoulders came back down, they fell even lower than they had been before.

"So it was your reluctance toward the end that landed you in the dungeons?" Elsa asked with precious little sympathy in her voice. "Despite everything you had done to help overthrow the kingdom?"

He laughed a short, mirthless laugh. "Not exactly. After Ragnarr dragged me down there and shoved me into that cell, just before he locked me in, he said, 'A man who has betrayed his country once can never be trusted not to turn traitor again.' I think that had been his plan for me all along. I was simply too blind to see it coming."

Elsa stared at the shrunken figure for a long, long time. His head remained bowed, his eyes lowered, his expression the resigned look of the condemned man awaiting the executioner's blade.

"You known the penalty for treason."

It was a statement, not a question. Still, after failing to suppress an involuntary shudder, Dyrdahl nodded. Elsa continued to stare.

"Arendelle," she eventually said, "is plagued with problems. It will take a great deal of time and resources to repair the damage done during the recent occupation. That is why I have sent a letter to the Royal Treasury. It states quite clearly that Vendel Dyrdahl, one of Arendelle's most upstanding and philanthropic citizens, has graciously offered to donate a sizable portion of his liquid assets to the Treasury in support of our efforts to recover from Ragnarr's brutal invasion. Naturally, news about an act of such great generosity will spread quickly. People will be cheering your name, Vendel."

He did not react but gazed fixedly at the floor. After all, what were accolades or money to a dead man?

"Unfortunately, the difficulties don't end there. Even before all of this came upon us, I had grave concerns. Between our strained relations with the Southern Isles and the cutting of our ties with the Duchy of Weselton, we have lost two of our principal trading partners. You know all of this, of course. It was the topic of several council meetings, though you did not have much to offer in the way of possible solutions then. I suppose I can now see why. Matters are likely to only get worse after this debacle when other countries begin to wonder just how stable a relationship with us can possibly be.

"This poses a particularly thorny predicament for me because, as I'm sure you are also well aware, no one else in the kingdom possesses even a fraction of the connections you do throughout Europe. Nobody is in a better position to help remedy these trade matters than you. Yet here you sit, an avowed traitor to Arendelle."

Elsa's frowned deepened as Dyrdahl continued to refuse eye contact. Here was a man totally defeated, but unlike Ragnarr, he had no fight left in him. Or rather, he had made the choice not to fight. He knew what he had done, knew that there was no way out for him, and so had wholly given himself over to whatever consequences now awaited him. There would be no protests, no appeals for mercy. In a way, she supposed, it was bravery of a sort.

"At this precise moment, however," she said, watching the man's face closely, "I believe there are only three people in the entire kingdom who know that to be the case. Coincidentally, they all happened to have been in this room just a few minutes ago. There's a chance that number might not need to grow any further, provided that certain conditions can be met and maintained."

This finally managed to penetrate through Dyrdahl's layers of guilt and humiliation. His head slowly rose and he looked at Elsa, not daring to allow hope to show on his face.

"First," she declared, "all your financial assets in Arendelle will be placed under control of the Royal Treasury and all transactions will be closely monitored. Provided you give us your full cooperation, you will be allowed access to sufficient funds for you and your wife to be able to live in _modest_ comfort.

"Second, you will announce your retirement from the Royal Advisory Council. You may offer whatever explanation you choose, subject to my personal approval, of course. Now that we both know exactly how you deal with the temptations brought on by that sort of power, I'm sure you will agree that it's best to place them well out of your reach.

"Third, you will then dedicate yourself, along with your considerable business and political acumen, to rectifying the current trade situation. You have pull with powerful people abroad in both government and industry. Negotiating favorable terms for Arendelle's goods and services, as well as fair rates on import items, should be child's play for you, though it will undoubtedly be made somewhat more difficult by the fact that you will bear no official title. Isn't it fortunate, then, that you enjoy a good challenge?

"Now doubtless you will have to travel beyond Arendelle's borders to engage in these bargaining efforts on her behalf. And I also have no doubt that you've other resources available to you beyond those that the Treasury can reach. But know this: if you try to use those resources to escape from your responsibilities under this deal, if you think that you can simply slip off and start afresh once you have left the kingdom, you will quickly come to regret that decision.

"If I hear even a hint that you've attempted such a thing, or done anything else not in the best interests of Arendelle and its people, I will waste no time in proclaiming your treachery to the entire world and issuing an immediate order for your arrest. Whatever assets you might have tucked away elsewhere will quickly be found and frozen, and there won't be a legitimate business or government in this entire hemisphere willing to touch you except with shackles. So you hold your fate entirely in your own two hands. Do I make myself clear?"

Dyrdahl nodded, still not quite able to believe what he was hearing. "Y-yes, Your Majesty."

"And will you concede to these terms? All of them?"

He rocked forward in an awkward attempt at a seated bow. "Yes, Your Majesty. Of course, Your Majesty."

Elsa scrutinized his face, searching for any trace of subterfuge or dishonesty. Unable to find any, she nodded. "Very well, then. Go home to your wife, Vendel. Work out the reasons for your retirement. I expect to have them on my desk by sundown tomorrow. Beyond that, it might be best for us both if I not see your face again for a while. Kai will work with you on any necessary arrangements." She waved a hand in curt dismissal, then made a show of organizing the various items atop her desk.

Dyrdahl rose to his feet and hurried across the study to the door, not daring to irritate the queen by overstaying his welcome for a second longer than could be helped. As he pulled the door open and made to complete his exit, however, he very nearly bowled over a slight figure who stood in the hallway, hand poised to knock on wood that suddenly was no longer there.

"Pardon me, Princess Anna," he said with only the faintest suggestion of a bow as he quickly squeezed past her. "Bit of a hurry, I'm afraid. Really must be going. Good day to you!" He barely got the last words out before he turned a corner in the passage and disappeared from sight.

Anna stood for a second, hand still raised, and blinked at the space that had been occupied by the departed man. Then she shook herself and, seeing little point now in knocking, simply walked into the study.

"What was that all about?" she asked as she crossed the room.

Elsa leaned back in her chair, every line in her body describing her weariness. "Bad news, I'm afraid. Vendel is retiring."

"No, really? Well, he did seem to have suffered more than most during his time in the dungeons, so maybe it shouldn't come as all that much of a surprise. Still, it's not like you didn't have enough to worry about already. I'm sorry it's getting worse before it gets better. Is there anything I can do to help?"

Elsa managed a small smile. "You mean anything _more_? You've been nearly as busy as I have, reaching out to the community, coordinating efforts to get food and supplies to the outlying areas where Ragnarr's forces resorted to pillaging…"

"At least now that the threat of injuring hostages has been removed, our soldiers have been able to move openly against the remaining invaders. Fritz says they should have most of them rooted out by the end of the week."

"Yes," Elsa sighed. "It's good to have at least a small bit of encouraging news for a change. Heaven knows we haven't had much of it lately."

Anna, who had perched on one corner of the desk, regarded her sister keenly. As usual, Elsa was pushing herself too hard, taking too much onto her own shoulders, allowing her sense of responsibility for all that had happened to drive her to the edge of endurance as she attempted to make everything right again. When she got this way, it was hard to get her to spare even a moment for the sake of her own sanity. Already, Anna could see her thoughts being drawn inexorably back to the pile of papers that were silently demanding her attention.

The humming began quietly, the melody soft and lilting. It rose and fell in gentle waves, but at the same time, it built steadily. Anna kept it going even as she watched her sister's eyes slide shut and her head loll limply against the chair's tall back. Though the instrument was odd, the tune was incredibly familiar, and it had long been one of Elsa's absolute favorites. Anna carried it through all the way to the very end.

Elsa's new smile was considerably warmer and more heartfelt than her last had been as she reopened her eyes and looked at Anna. "That was beautiful," she said.

Anna shrugged. "I don't know about that, but I could hardly help myself. It's been stuck in my head all morning. Ever since I read this."

For the first time, Elsa noticed the heavy piece of folded paper that Anna held in her hand.

"Una gave it to me," Anna continued as a fond smile of her own began growing. "She's been holding it at the post office ever since it arrived weeks ago. Said she hadn't delivered it earlier because she couldn't bear the thought of Ragnarr tearing it open and reading it.

"It's from Marie," she added unnecessarily.

Elsa's smile blossomed into one of her rare, full grins. "And what does she have to say?"

Anna, who had done a remarkable job of restraining her excitement up until this point, could hold it in no longer. Her face lit up as she beamed at her sister. "She's nearly done with her studies. In fact, she's graduating from conservatory this spring. And once she does, she says she wants to come back to Arendelle!"

A few of her many cares seemed to fall from Elsa's shoulders. "Oh, that's wonderful! It will be so good to see her again! I barely got a chance to talk with her at all at the coronation, what with all the dignitaries and ambassadors and everyone else I had to meet. Hopefully things won't be quite so crazy by then, and we'll all be able to enjoy a nice, quiet visit together with a chance to catch up on everything that we've all missed."

"Yeah," Anna agreed, "except… not exactly." Unable to contain herself any longer, she bounced up off the desk and spun around on the spot, her skirts twirling out in an uncontrollable excess of joy.

"Anna?" Elsa asked, perplexed.

"Marie doesn't just want to come for a visit!" Anna exclaimed. "She wants to move here! She wants to come back to Arendelle for good!"


	43. Epilogue

"Good morning, Princess Anna!"

"Couldn't ask for a more beautiful day, eh, Your Highness?"

"Have a wonderful festival, Princess Anna!"

"And a Merry Midsummer to you, Edvard! Gregory! Helga!" Anna sang back, waving as she practically danced across the bridge. The sun had not long risen above the eastern mountains, but already the day was as bright and brilliant as any she could remember. Tents and stalls that had been erected the night before were already hosting their first curious guests, out early to explore the many delights that the entire town would be enjoying in the hours to come.

It was the first Midsummer's Eve since the castle gates had opened a year ago. The holiday had always been special for her, because it had been the one time each year when she had been allowed, with full parental permission and escort, to leave the castle for a time. It had been a tradition every June for the royal family to hold a feast and a seaside bonfire as their way of thanking all those who worked within the castle walls.

This year, however, Elsa had declared that the festivities would be expanded beyond anything they'd ever been before. Indeed, they would rival those surrounding the coronation itself. After everything the kingdom had weathered since that day, Elsa had felt that a massive celebration was considerably overdue, and there hadn't been a single voice of dissent on that score.

Both the palace and the town had been festooned with brightly colored banners, streamers, and flowers. Food and drink would be made available in great abundance for all, though everyone had been cautioned to save room for the evening feast which promised to be especially lavish. There were to be games and dancing and ice skating (which had been a big hit when Elsa had first converted the courtyard into a rink last year). Anybody who failed to find something worth enjoying today had to be stubbornly determined to be unhappy. But the main event in Anna's mind – the one thing above all others that she simply could not bear to miss – was scheduled to occur shortly before the revelers were all called to dinner…

"Hoo hoo!" a familiar voice called from the stall that Anna was strolling past. "Beeg summer party today, yah?"

"Mr. Oaken!" Anna immediately changed direction and walked over to the cart that had been parked in line with the rest of the merchants along one side of the square. A colorfully painted sign up near the roof proudly declared the merchant's name: _Oaken's Tokens._ And below that, in smaller letters: _Fine C_ _urios, Souvenirs, & Lutefisk. _

"Oh, it's all sue exciting, isn't it?" the oversized man said as he leaned on the ledge of the open shop window. "Ze whole familee has come down vit me today. They're all running aruend here somewhere, looking at everything. Of course, I'm vatching ze store. I expect to do beeg business, ya know! Ah, but I promised to make time later to dance vit my special sweetheart, so that will be gude too!"

"Aw, that's so sweet," Anna said as she perused the items displayed on the shelves before her. "And these are lovely! Did you make them all?"

Oaken's chest swelled with pride. "My son!" he declared "He's ze artist in our familee."

Anna picked up one little figurine to examine more closely. It was mostly black and white, with large ears and a tail made of string. In a fit of whimsy, the sculptor had decided to dress the curious creature in red shorts and yellow shoes. It was odd, yet strangely adorable. Setting it back down, she considered the other knickknacks also available for sale.

"Ooh!" She scooped up another figure and lifted it into the light. "Oh yes. This one's perfect!" Smiling, she extended it toward the shop's proprietor. "I'll take it."

"Ah, gude choice! Ve also offer free gift wrapping services, for your convenience."

"No, thank you," she said as they completed the exchange. "But I do hope you enjoy the festival!" Then with a wave, she was off again. There was so much still to see, and certain stops she knew she absolutely had to make.

Wending her way through the close-packed buildings near the docks and climbing a small rise, she reached a patch of green grass that had been temporarily fenced in. At the small gate in the fence, a queue of boys and girls were already lined up, all eagerly awaiting their turns. Anna walked to the opposite side, leaned on a fencepost, and watched the goings-on within.

"I never knew you were so good with children," she said coyly when it looked like her presence might go unnoticed.

Kristoff looked over in surprise, and his face did a strange little dance as it tried to decide whether to grin or scowl. Ultimately giving up on both, he shrugged. "That would be Sven, not me. All I have to do is put them on his back and give him the occasional carrot. He takes care of the rest." He patted his friend's neck as the reindeer trotted past, circling just within the fence to the delight of the brother and sister perched on his saddle.

"I think you sell yourself short," Anna teased. "I've seen the way you are with Crystal, Flint, Orel, and the rest of the trollings, you know."

"Yeah, well, they're family," Kristoff pointed out distractedly as he helped the young riders dismount.

"Oh, is that the trick? Well, if that's all it takes, then I'm sure arrangements could be made…"

Just like that, Kristoff was no longer the slightest bit distracted. "Anna!"

Straightening, she smiled coquettishly. "Anyway, I just wanted to remind you that I'll be saving you a dance later. Or two. Maybe more." Turning, she looked back over her shoulder, fluttered her eyelids, and waggled her fingers in his direction.

Then proceeded to grab frantically onto the fence as, with her first step, her foot hit a slippery spot and nearly flew out from under her. As she pulled herself upright again and tried to restore some measure of dignity, she heard the tittering of the children, amused by her near spill. But that was fine, and she smiled easily at them before she headed back down the small hillock. Their laughter didn't bother her at all.

Especially because she was nearly positive that the snickering sound Sven was still making had begun just a second or two _before_ her misstep. And she was also pretty sure that it'd had something to do with the expression she'd just managed to glimpse on Kristoff's face.

Once again, she threaded her way between the shops and storefronts, stopping briefly to peer into a window here and there to admire the wares for sale. She didn't linger long, though, and was soon walking back through the increasingly busy plaza. Here, her progress slowed considerably since she couldn't seem to walk two steps without someone calling out to her in greeting. These days, it seemed like she knew everyone and everyone knew her. And it was wonderful!

She remembered one of her escapes into town through Bolli's tunnel when she had been younger, and how she'd been left feeling isolated and alone even as she'd sat amid the bustling activity at dockside. Everyone had been a stranger to her then, and she'd known so little about their lives. Despite how much she had wanted to strike up a conversation with each and every one of them, she'd simply had no idea where even to begin because theirs lives and hers seemed so completely different.

But oh, how times had changed! No longer did she feel like she was caught hopelessly in-between the palace and the people. They'd all been through so much together that it was impossible to deny just how intertwined their worlds had become. Now she could chat with them about their families, their businesses, their hopes for the future. Children routinely asked her to repeat their favorite parts of The Story, and she would always oblige them whenever she could. Today, though, there were too many other things for the young ones to see, and it was usually an insistent tug on a parent's hand that ended most of the conversations she found herself drawn into.

Eventually, she made her way through the press and back to the bridge, slightly out of breath but thoroughly exhilarated. Pausing for a moment, she surveyed the milling crowd from a position no longer in their midst, and she smiled. These were her people. She was their princess. Elsa was their queen, and she was her sister. The moment was so close to perfect, it was almost heartbreaking. And yet, Anna had the inescapable feeling that the day was still holding on to something even better.

Hurrying back across the bridge, Anna bounded into the courtyard, spinning merrily to grin at the door guards as they saluted. She did not stay to talk, however, for she was still clutching her purchase from Oaken's, and she was growing increasingly eager to deliver it to one of the people whom she suspected would be responsible for several more of the day's nearly-perfect moments.

At the other side of the courtyard, built up just before the palace doors, a performance stage had been erected. Actors, jugglers, storytellers, and artists of all sorts would be using it off and on throughout the morning and into the afternoon. But that evening, just before the feast, a concert had been scheduled to showcase any and all local musicians with both the talent and the courage necessary to entertain what by then would surely be a huge and enthusiastic crowd. And the headline performer at that show – who just happened to be at the foot of the stage right now listening to the first act warm up for the opening set of the day – was none other than…

"Marie!"

The brunette's head turned at the sound of her name, and she beamed at the sight of her dear friend hurrying over to join her. "'Allo, Anna," she said. Ten years living in the French capital had added a light, pleasant accent to her voice – one that Anna still continued to be slightly surprised by every time she heard it. "You certainly were out early. We only got down here ourselves but a minute ago."

The other part of that 'we' added his own smile to the ones surrounding him. "I'm surprised Kai didn't have to knock on her door to wake her up. As I heard tell, she would have slept through Coronation Day if not for his services."

"Don't listen to him, Marie," Anna chided. "He doesn't know what he's talking about."

"Oh, don't I? Well then, I'm sure Kai has to be around here somewhere. No doubt he'll set me straight. Oy, Kai! Hey, has anybody seen Kai?"

"Shh! Just you be quiet, Josef Mikkelsen!"

His grin grew wider. "Is that a royal order, Your Highness?"

She glared at him with no real anger as she complained to Marie, "Nine years now and I still can't get him to just call me Anna."

"Well, he's a bit bashful that way," Marie replied with a knowing wink.

"Josef? Bashful?" Anna shook her head in disbelief. "I'll grant you that there was a time when he would barely say a word if he could help it, but he's not that same man anymore. You should have seen him fighting off those soldiers while we were escaping the castle!"

"I wish I could have." Marie craned around just in time to see an elbow come up to cover an all-too-conveniently-timed coughing fit. Since her return, Josef had volunteered to be her escort as often as his duties had allowed, but despite her prodding, he hadn't talked much about his role in the resistance, his time in the dungeons, or the part he had played during the escape. She didn't get the impression that his silence was a product of the events being too painfully traumatic or anything. Rather, it seemed to her that he simply didn't feel his contributions had been worthy of all that much discussion. From what she'd heard from others, she would have disagreed, but she was content to let him keep his modesty. She actually found it rather endearing.

"Hmph. Looks like we might have an audience after all!"

"Didn't I tell you?" Anna said brightly to the newcomer who was looking down at them from the front of the stage. Well, more like looking straight across at them, actually. Either way, it was certainly true that a respectably large group of curious townsfolk had now begun to gather in the courtyard. "Though I will admit, I was surprised when Kristoff brought in your application to perform today, Rohl!"

He gave an indifferent grunt. "What can I say? After he told the rest of his clan how we met in the caves, everybody suddenly wanted to hear more of our northern songs. Ended up starting something of a craze, particularly among the younger generation." He jerked his head over his shoulder at the three other trolls who were noodling on a set of reed pipes, running through a few quick drum cadences, and tuning an odd-looking three-stringed instrument. To Anna's eyes at least, they all appeared to be older adolescents. At least the way they had grown out their grassy hair so that it hung down their backs seemed to hint at that typically rebellious age.

"Ordinarily, we prefer to keep to ourselves, of course," Rohl went on. "But when I told the tales of my various explorations and asked why this clan didn't have a scouting corps, I guess that started quite a few others thinking, too. Considering the part I played during the liberation, a lot more humans are aware of us now than before. And there are some in the clan, young and old alike, who feel that we've stayed hidden long enough. So as a first step, Grand Pabbie agreed that this little artistic exchange might not be the worst of ideas."

"Well I, for one, can't wait to hear something completely new," Marie declared eagerly. "I've always found listening to music from other cultures to be absolutely fascinating."

"Fascinating might be expecting a bit much," Rohl cautioned, "but we'll do our best to keep you entertained." Then, responding to a shout from one of the other band members, he looked back over his shoulder.

"Yeah, okay. I'll be right there," he called. "Sorry, but they're a bit nervous, what with this being the first time they've played in front of a crowd and all. They want to go over the song list one last time. I'll catch up with you all again later, right?"

"Absolutely," Anna agreed as Rohl turned away and shambled off. But the sight of his retreating back as he went to prepare for his set actually served to jog a memory that had temporarily slipped her mind.

"By the way, Marie," she said, "I wanted to tell you how much I'm looking forward to hearing _you_ perform this evening, and I really hope that you do well. But I know that some believe you shouldn't wish somebody good luck before they go on stage, so I thought maybe I could do something a little different instead."

The entire time they had been talking, Anna had kept her hands hidden behind her back. Now she swung them around and, with a little bow, presented her gift in dramatic fashion. She knew she had chosen well when Marie gasped, then reached out and gingerly picked up the small statue with the greatest of care.

She ran a finger along the finely sculpted line of the horse's back, traced the curve of its flowing tail, and then delicately scratched the underside of its chin with one fingernail. Though the wooden sculpture was clearly intended to be sturdy enough to amuse a child, it was no caricature like the other trinket Anna had examined. The horse had been captured mid-canter, and while the paint was simple, it had been carefully applied and helped to add an additional layer of realism.

"Oh, Anna!" Marie breathed. "It's beautiful!"

"I'm so glad you like it. Happy Midsummer's Eve!"

'Thank you! Thank you so much!"

Josef looked ready to add a comment of his own, but another voice interrupted him and drew all their attention.

"Anna, there you are! I've been looking all over for you. I thought I'd catch you in your room before you got up this morning."

A stifled laugh from the stablemaster was even more forcefully curtailed by a petite elbow driven pointedly into his thigh.

"Sorry, Elsa." Anna did her best not to look at the smirk that Josef still couldn't quite hide. "What is it? Did we miss something in the preparations? It's early enough that we might still be able to..."

"No, no, nothing like that," Elsa said, entering their little circle and greeting both Marie and Josef with a smile and a nod. "As far as I know, everything's running perfectly. I just… Well, I was kind of hoping to give you your Midsummer's present."

"Ooh! I've got yours in my room. Let me go grab it and then we can exchange…"

"Actually," and Elsa looked slightly embarrassed or maybe just nervous, "I was hoping I could give you mine first. That is, if you don't mind."

Surprised but curious, Anna saw no reason to argue. "Okay. So… What is it?" Then, seeing that Elsa's hands were empty, she amended her question to, "Where is it?"

"Um, I can't really bring it to you," Elsa answered in an oddly evasive sort of way. "But I can take you to it right now, if you'd like. And if Marie and Josef wouldn't mind."

"By all means!" Marie consented easily, then added with a smile, "So long as you have her back in time for the concert, of course."

"You know I wouldn't miss that for anything, Marie." Bending down, Anna gave her friend a quick kiss on each cheek, adopting the French custom that Marie had explained to her. Then with a smile of her own and a wave for Josef, she followed Elsa around the stage toward the palace.

As they turned the corner, Anna heard the Master of Ceremonies clear his throat to get the crowd's attention. "Ladies and gentlemen," his voice rang out. "Our first act of the day is certainly unlike anything Arendelle has seen in generations, and they've come down from the mountains today to charm us with a mix of both traditional and more recent material, though I suspect it will all be quite new to us. So please give a warm welcome to our very special guests… the Trolling Stones!"

Anna experienced a twinge of regret for having to miss Rohl's debut performance, but her curiosity had been well and truly roused by all of Elsa's cryptic non-answers. "So, where exactly are we going?" she asked, trying hard not to sound too eager.

"About that," Elsa said, her eyes now alight with an excitement all her own. "You might need to change your clothes…"

• • •

"Elsa, what are we doing here?" She had to raise her voice to be heard over the stiff wind.

"I already told you. We missed celebrating your birthday this year because of all the chaos, so I wanted to get you something extra special for Midsummer's Eve!"

"Yeah, but are you sure you couldn't have given it to me back at the castle?"

Anna looked up at the towering crystalline facade that climbed skyward above them, and felt like she'd been transported back in time to the previous July, the last time she had been forced to wear mittens and a heavy cloak during the warmest months of the year. Two hours ago, she'd been running about in one of the light dresses she always favored in spring and summer. But here, the North Mountain was as cold and snow-covered as ever while she stood, shivered, and watched Elsa knock three times on the palace's enormous front doors.

It was only a matter of seconds before the two giant slabs of ice swung inward, but their way was hardly less impeded. The entrance was filled by two white columns thicker than most tree trunks, which nevertheless seemed too small to support the massive snowball balanced atop them.

"Hello, Marshmallow!" Anna called out. Somehow, it always felt like she needed to shout just a little for her voice to reach all the way up to where the giant's ears ought to be. Hollow eyes blinked down at her for a moment until recognition finally dawned, and then a broad smile split his snowy face.

"Ah-na," he said in his slow, deep voice. "El-sah. Come." He stepped back and gestured them in with a wave of an arm that could easily have capsized any of the smaller boats in Arendelle's harbor.

Anna first entrance into the palace's main foyer had filled her with awe and wonder, and that sensation had barely been diminished despite her many subsequent visits. Every time was a new experience. Depending on the hour of day and the angle of the sun, the entire room could change. The light filtering through the walls would shift their colors from the deepest of purples to fiery oranges and golden yellows. Reflections and refractions made her feel like she was standing in the center of a giant prism. If she hadn't been so impatient to get back down to the revelries, she could have been quite content to just sit and watch the room evolve with the passing hours.

"Where is Skadi, Marshmallow?" Elsa asked, drawing Anna's attention back to their host. One of his icy fingers, nearly as big as Anna herself, pointed to the sweeping staircase that led to the upper floor. Smiling her thanks, Elsa grabbed her sister's hand and proceeded to half-lead, half-pull her up the stairs.

"What kind of present is this, exactly?" Anna asked, trying hard not to get her foot caught in one of the gaps between steps.

"A special one, like I said," Elsa replied mischievously. "Don't worry. You'll find out soon enough."

They practically burst though the open archway into the second-floor overlook, Anna stumbling to a halt when Elsa finally ceased her headlong rush. The room was much the same as Anna remembered it from the first time she'd been here, except for the addition of an ornately decorated chair in the middle of the floor. It appeared to rise straight out of the ice and yet, in defiance of all mechanical conventions, now rotated to face the two guests.

"Hello," said Skadi, smiling serenely as she stroked the feathers of a small snow bunting that was perched on the side of her hand. She raised an eyebrow at Elsa. "Today is the day then?"

"It is," Elsa agreed, nodding energetically, "if you're ready and still willing."

Anna's head swiveled back and forth between the other two women. "What day?" she asked. She could appreciate a good surprise as much as anyone, but this was getting a mite ridiculous. "Ready for what?"

As Skadi rose to her feet and, with a little toss of her hand, sent the bird fluttering over to a nearby perch, Elsa turned to look her sister straight on. "It's the day you've been waiting for since you were five years old, Anna, even if you didn't always know it," she said with a twinkle in her eye. "And it's something that I never could have given you before."

"Elsa?" Anna felt a cautious excitement growing, but the cautious part was making her nervous. Elsa's warm smile helped, but she was still more than ready for this teasing to end.

"I've spoken with Skadi," Elsa explained, "and she's agreed to restore your memories, just like we'd asked Grand Pabbie to do. You'll be able to remember things the way they really happened! All our games in the snow, all the fun we had together… We'll be able to share them properly again, just like you wanted!"

There was a beat where Anna simply continued to stare at her sister. Then her hands flew to her mouth. "Oh, Elsa," she said, the words mitten-muffled. "Elsa, you didn't have to do that!"

"Maybe not." Elsa reached up and pulled Anna's hands away from her face, holding them both in her own. "But I wanted to. I know it's been bothering you ever since you found out the truth about what happened, and now we finally have the chance to make things right. After all this time, we can… Anna? What's wrong?"

Anna's head was shaking back and forth and, for some strange reason, her face wore an expression of acute embarrassment and guilt. "I'm sorry," she squeaked. "I should have told you. I _tried_ to tell you before when we were in Skadi's castle, but then she started talking about you taking away her memories, and there was that whole business with you holding in magic when you shouldn't have been, and then you having to decide whether to stay there or come back here, and then we invited Skadi to come with us instead, and then you had your lessons, and Ragnarr, and one thing after another and…"

"It's okay, Anna," Elsa said. She almost laughed because Anna's distress over having simply forgotten to tell her something was reaching nearly comical proportions. "It's fine. Whatever it is, you can just tell me now."

Anna dropped her head and bit her lip before she sheepishly raised her eyes. "When I said you didn't have to do this, I really meant that you didn't have to do this. Because… well… you kinda… sorta… already did."

Elsa blinked. Then she blinked again. "Wait, what?"

"Remember when you restored my memories, the ones that Skadi took from me? I told you afterward that I remembered everything. _Everything,_ Elsa! I remember that time I fell from the old oak tree and you caught me with a huge pile of snow. I remember when you used to freeze poor Prof. Engelstad's tea and Nanny's big… erm, well… I… I remember that night in the Great Hall! I remember sliding around on the floor after you covered it with ice. I remember building our little snowman together. I remember the tickle bumps, and jumping from one snow pile to the next, and… and I remember… well… everything.

"Please don't be upset with me," she finished meekly.

"Upset? Upset!" Elsa launched herself forward and wrapped Anna tightly in her arms. "Anna, I'm not upset. I'm just so happy for you!" Anna practically melted into the embrace, returning it with one of her own. Then, Elsa felt her sister's body shaking. "Anna? Anna, why are you crying?"

"I'm not crying, silly," she said, playfully slapping Elsa's shoulder. "I'm laughing!"

"Oh. Care to let me in on the joke?"

"It's just that you were so determined to give me a special present for Midsummer's Eve because you missed my birthday, right? Except that you didn't! You actually gave me the best present ever, on my birthday! Give or take a couple of days maybe, but I don't think anybody was really counting."

Elsa couldn't help but chuckle herself. "I guess I did. But that leaves us with a bit of a problem."

Anna withdrew just far enough to give her a questioning look. "We do?"

"I'm afraid so. Because now I don't have anything to give you for Midsummer's Eve."

"Ahem. If I may?" The two both turned as Skadi's voice broke into their conversation. "I believe that I might be able to help you there."

Elsa and Anna exchanged bewildered glances. "Um, you can?" asked Elsa uncertainly.

Skadi nodded. "Or, if you wish to be entirely accurate, I am hopeful that _we_ can." And before either of the girls could question the choice of pronoun, she had already lifted a hand. A small gesture was all it took for the balcony doors to swing open, and through them stepped a slender figure whose snow-white face they both recognized immediately.

"Elsa?" Anna whispered, gripping her sister's arm for reassurance. Elsa was shaking her head.

"No," she murmured. "No, it can't be."

"Anna!" Elsa's voice rang out from a completely different mouth. "You have no idea how long I've wanted to meet you face to face. Although really, I suppose you could say I've already known you your entire life."

Suddenly, a suspicion kindled within Anna's mind. "Elsa, is that…?"

But her sister was already taking a step forward, her face aglow with utter amazement. Hesitantly, she held out a trembling hand.

"Fare?"

The snow figure that looked so very much like Elsa – with the exception of its odd, upswept hair style – smiled. "I hope you don't mind," she said, indicating her entire body with a broad wave of both arms, "but this is the way you always saw me. Now it's become the way I see myself."

"Fare!"

Elsa bolted forward and grabbed the other's shoulders. Her eyes were busily tracing every familiar line while she marveled at what, to her, was quite literally a dream come to life. "How? How is this possible?"

"It is possible," Skadi answered, "because of you, Elsa."

Reluctantly, Elsa tore her eyes away from her other self to look at Skadi. "Because of me? I don't understand."

Skadi smiled indulgently. Then her eyes shifted to a spot about two paces to her right. Elsa and Anna watched as a chiseled form rose up from the floor, much like others had done from the palace courtyard months before. It was a snow soldier, and it stood now at rigid attention.

"We have each seen the other's creations," Skadi said, beginning to walk slowly around the immobile figure, "and I'm sure you've noticed that yours and mine are quite different."

Elsa nodded. "Yours are much better. They're far more detailed and realistic than anything I've ever been able to make."

"And you think that makes them better?" Skadi asked in precisely the same tone that their old tutor, Prof. Engelstad, had always used when one of his students said something that played directly into the lesson he was preparing to teach. "Did you notice nothing else?" Elsa, looking confused, tried to grasp whatever point it was that Skadi was attempting to make.

"Yours never talked," piped up Anna a bit timidly.

"Yes!" Skadi agreed, pointing at Anna as though she was suddenly the star pupil. "They never talked. They never smiled. They never joked or laughed or cried. They never did anything except what I commanded them to do. They were merely puppets – extra arms and legs, nothing more.

"But you, Elsa. Olaf and Marshmallow could do all of those things. Even the bear, Polla, was able to do more on her own than anything I ever created. I gave snow form, but you gave it life!"

"I didn't mean to!" Elsa exclaimed a touch defensively. "At least, not at first. I didn't even know what I was doing. I just… did it."

"Exactly. Without any training and with no hesitation, you were able to perform this miraculous feat. And do you have any guess as to why you were able to so easily do what I could not?" Elsa shook her head. "Does the figure beside you not give you any clues?"

Fare was still smiling when Elsa turned to look at her again. Elsa tried to think, tried to puzzle through this riddle, but her mind just kept coming back to the same thought over and over again. _Fare! She's here! She's real!_

"Do you remember the first time we met?" asked Fare. "I do. I was… well, I was a bit of a jerk, to use a polite word for it. I was really quite awful. I mocked and belittled you without any concern for how it might make you feel. In fact, I was trying to hurt you. I wanted to make you angry. Angry enough that you would be able to push past the block you'd reached with your magic. It was a stupid thing to do, but I was so young then. We both were. Neither of us is the same person now. Thank goodness, right?" She laughed.

And Anna gasped.

"I believe your sister has guessed the secret," said Skadi, her smile growing wide enough to encompass them all. "Would you mind sharing, Anna?"

"Memories," Anna said with breathless awe. "When Olaf and I were traveling north with Skadi, there were several times that I wondered how he knew certain things, things he'd never experienced for himself. When Kristoff and I first met him, he knew you by name, Elsa, even though you had left before he could ever have met you. And he remembered liking warm hugs, just like when we built him that night in the Great Hall! And he knew how to talk and everything, though there obviously hadn't been anybody there to teach him. Elsa, you had to have given him those memories!"

"Whereas for me," Skadi admitted, "memories were something I simply wanted to be rid of. I hated them, almost feared them, and dedicated centuries of my life to finding some way to eradicate them. They were a curse, not something to be shared or given to another as a gift. Never would I have imparted them to one of my creations. The very idea would have seemed ridiculous to me.

"But then, I spent those weeks traveling with Anna and Olaf, and I marveled at his behavior. To him, every new experience was exciting and wonderful, every new day a chance to have an adventure. His memories, those you gave him and those he had made, did not hold him back. They gave him the ability to do amazing things, like making friends and becoming part of your family.

"When you lost him, I struggled to understand your grief at first. I always saw my creations as disposable. If one fell, another could take its place, and nothing significant would have changed or been lost. I was so unused to the notion that they could ever be anything more than that, even though I had come to recognize that Olaf was different during the short time I had known him.

"I have had time to reflect since then, and I have spent months living here with Marshmallow as well. Though his memories are very different from Olaf's, they still make him extraordinary. He is possessed of a loyalty and a fierce devotion that will drive him to greater feats of courage than anything my soldiers have ever done. He has an imagination and a kind heart. I have never met anyone who treats my animal friends with as much tenderness as he has shown to them.

"So it was that, after much consideration, I finally decided to see if I could follow your example. I even had the perfect set of memories available to me." She turned her smile upon Fare. "I was overjoyed to find that, even after having lived as long as I have, there are still new things in this world that I can learn."

Anna, who had remained standing away from the others during this entire exchange, now moved forward. With a curious tilt of her head, she considered Fare's face, so very much like her sister's. Fare abided her inspection without comment until Anna, with one quizzically cocked eyebrow, spoke.

"So you used to live inside Elsa's head?"

Fare nodded.

"What… What was it like?"

Fare gave the question serious thought before answering. "Comfortable," she said. "Very organized, except when it wasn't. Familiar, yet always with something new to explore. Warm." (This caused Anna to giggle.) "Full of love. And joy. And fear, sadness, anger. But also full of you, Anna, and your parents, and the friends that you shared." Fare shrugged.

"In short, I suppose it felt like home."

Anna looked to Elsa and grinned. "I like this present."

"Oh, I'm not the present," Fare corrected. "That isn't quite ready yet, though hopefully it will be soon. But we're going to need help." Her eyes flicked over to Elsa. "From both of you."

Elsa looked startled. Clearly, this had not been a part of whatever discussions she'd had with Skadi earlier. "Umm," she managed, "what exactly do you have in mind?"

"Well, you've met one old friend today that you never expected to see again. We thought maybe you might like to try for two."

Skadi came and stood beside Fare. "Now that I've had some experience with the techniques involved, I believe it may be possible to help you bring back Olaf."

On its perch, the snow bunting chirruped. It was the only sound in the room.

"That's… not possible." Elsa looked back and forth between Fare & Skadi. "Is it? I mean, creating him once was one thing, but bringing him back? Neither of us has ever done anything like that. And even if I did give him his original memories, he made so many on his own afterward. Those would be gone forever, wouldn't they?"

"Perhaps," Skadi replied carefully, "but perhaps not. Memories he made while he was by himself might be lost, certainly. But his mind was a gift from you, Elsa, and I feel certain that means it would have worked much like yours as well. A mortal mind forgets, and so would his. I doubt that a few gaps here and there will even be noticed, especially when something tells me his most important memories were the ones he shared. He spent most of his time with his friends, did he not? Memories made together are only lost when all have forgotten them. And there are few who know better how to walk among the dim paths of the past than the two of us."

"I know your mind, Elsa," said Fare. "I grew up in it! I'm certain I can find every recollection of Olaf you have – even ones you can no longer recall on your own."

"My centuries of study should do for me what familiarity will do for Fare," Skadi said to Anna. "And I have visited your mind on several occasions. Allow what I do now to help atone for what I did then."

The royal sisters looked at each other, both equally uncertain. Yet when their eyes met, an unspoken agreement passed between them in an instant.

"For Olaf?" asked Elsa.

Anna nodded. "For Olaf."

"Well then," Elsa said, turning back to Skadi, "what do you need us to do?"

Soon, they stood facing each other, an arm's length apart. Between them, but each off to one side, stood Fare and Skadi. "All you need to do," Fare was saying, "is think about Olaf. Try to remember everything that you can, even things that you just happened to experience together. That should make it easier for us to find where other memories might be hiding. When we give the word, Elsa, it will be up to you to channel the magic to reform his body. We will assist in adding the memories to the flow."

"One word of warning, however," Skadi added. "All of the memories will have to be brought together before they can become Olaf again. And because we will all be connected by the magic, that means that you may find yourselves seeing certain things from a perspective that is not your own. This is nothing to be concerned about. They will merely be glimpses of another's memories briefly passing through your mind on their way to their final destination. Try not to let them frighten you. It is more important that you continue to focus on Olaf. Understand?"

Anna and Elsa both nodded. Satisfied, Skadi looked across the gap between them. "Ready?" she asked Fare. "Then let us begin."

Anna felt the pressure of ice cold fingertips upon both of her temples, and the shock of it startled her. It was difficult to decide whose were colder. She saw Skadi and Fare touching Elsa's face as well, saw Elsa close her eyes, and then remembered the instructions she'd been given. Closing her own, she began the hunt for every moment that she could remember spending with Olaf.

Images of the little snowman immediately began to flash before her mind's eye. His dejected face as he reattached the broken stub of his nose. His pride when she'd told him of the vital role he would play in their mission to retake Arendelle. His excitement as he'd floated in mid-air while Elsa had performed her exercises under Skadi's supervision. His gloom when considering the possibility that Elsa might stay with the Snow Queen, breaking up their little family.

She remembered his steadfast loyalty and friendship that had sustained her during their journey north, and the look of shock and betrayal on his face when she, having lost all memory of him, had knocked him from Skadi's sled. She remembered watching the aurora with him, so much brighter and more captivating closer to the pole, and the wonder that had filled his wide eyes. She saw him sitting by the fire that Skadi had kindled in the middle of the wilderness, trying to find the perfect spot where he could enjoy the heat that he loved so much without melting away to a puddle.

Suddenly, a different image leapt into her mind. Olaf, suspended in mid-air, abruptly engulfed by flames. She gasped and tried to recoil.

"Steady," a voice said to her, though she wasn't immediately certain who it belonged to or even whether it had bothered passing through her ears on its way to her. "We are not done yet. You must continue to focus." Shaken but reminded of the part she needed to play, Anna forced her mind back to the task at hand.

Olaf, sitting beside her in Skadi's sled, recounting the events that had happened to him after he'd first been created. Falling over a frozen waterfall, trying to play tag with the frightened woodland animals, wandering around aimlessly until his path had finally crossed her own. Then she heard echoes of him naming Skadi's polar bear companions – Bernie and Barney – simply because he wanted to make friends with them and you couldn't very well be friends with someone if you didn't even know their name. She saw him charging around the corner of the castle upon Polla's back, wildly out of control but barely even concerned by it.

There he was, walking around the palace gardens under his own little snow cloud as the autumn leaves blew about and kept trying to stick to him. Several briefly caught in his "hair" while one managed to impale itself upon his nose. Next, he was having his first taste of ice cream. Even though he didn't need to eat, that didn't always stop him from wanting a taste anyway. He nearly fell off his stool when the spoonful of sweetness slipped into his mouth. Now he was running around the streets of the dockside market district, thrilled beyond words to be playing a game of hide-and-seek with the neighborhood children. And here he came gliding up behind her and giving her a little push to keep her from falling as Elsa directed her in her first skating lesson.

Olaf using an icicle as a spyglass to declare the return of Kristoff, the pungent reindeer king. Olaf being blown away by a sudden gale-force gust of wind just as the two of them had managed to reach the frozen surface of the fjord. Olaf looking stricken and completely lost as a tormented Elsa clung to…

Again, the sudden appearance of such a foreign and horrifying memory caused Anna's focus to falter, but this time, she forced herself to move past it without any outside prompting. _Think, Anna. Think!_ she exhorted herself. _Remember!_

The race back to the palace from the troll's hollow, with Olaf wanting to know who this Hans person was. The trolls' celebration at Kristoff's return with which Olaf had energetically joined despite having been convinced minutes earlier that Kristoff had to be crazy to have brought them to a valley full of rocks. Their flight from Marshmallow, in which Olaf had tried bravely but futilely to deter his hulking little brother. Her conversation with Elsa at the Ice Palace, into the middle of which Olaf had cheerfully inserted himself after having waited the precise minute that Anna had specified.

Olaf beside Anna at the bottom of the stairs, as seen through Elsa's eyes. The shock, the marvel, and a surge of immense fondness for the last night of childhood happiness that Anna and Elsa had ever spent together. A brief flash of Olaf as seen from behind and, beyond him, the tiny form of a five-year-old girl giggling with pure joy. Eight words that echoed inside her mind in two distinct voices. _Hi, I'm Olaf, and…_

"Now, Elsa!"

Anna's eyes flew open. In the small space between the four women, magic was already swirling. Sparkling motes of blue and glistening flakes of white twisted and danced together, spinning faster and faster until the two became indistinguishable. In through the open balcony window, borne aloft by the paper-thin layer of ice that encased them, flew several black stones and a handful of small sticks. Darting between their legs, these joined the miniature whirlwind. In the heart of the tempest, discernible shapes began to form and grow. Not daring to breathe, Anna watched, waited, and silently prayed with all her heart.

She wondered if, with a goddess standing right beside her, her prayers would have a better chance of being heard.

With a sound like a sigh, the winds died away. The figure that was left standing before them looked right, as far as Anna could see. All the parts appeared to be the correct size and shape. But then, that had never been the troublesome part. What really mattered was all that lay hidden inside: everything that had made Olaf… Olaf.

The next few seconds seemed to stretch on for hours.

The snow suddenly shook. The head tipped back, then began to slowly turn. Feet shuffled beneath the body as the turn continued. Wide, dark eyes looked up at the four faces that stared back down at him with intent interest. After completing one entire circuit, the snowman stopped, again facing Elsa.

"What?" said a familiar voice. "What are you all looking at? Do I have something on my face?" Twiggy arms reached to pat chin, cheeks, forehead, and…

There was a sudden gasp. "My nose!" Pushing through the gap between Skadi and Anna, the little figure hurried over to a stretch of wall so smooth and perfect, it could be used in a pinch as a makeshift mirror. Fingers poked at the spot just below the eyes where something was decidedly not. "Where's my nose?" Turning around, he looked toward Anna. "I can still get a new one, can't I?"

"Don't you remember what happened to your nose?" Anna asked cautiously.

"No."

Anna exchanged a nervous look with Elsa.

"I mean, I remember it broke when I used it to unlock the last cell in the dungeon, but I have no idea where it got to after that." Gingerly, he again fingered the place where his nose should have been. "I miss it," he said sadly.

"And," Anna prodded, "do you remember who we are?"

The look he gave her was exactly the same as the one he'd worn when they'd both first entered the Valley of Living Rock with Kristoff. "Why? Don't you know?"

"Please, just… humor me, okay?"

Slowly, as if worried that any sudden moves might spook her, he nodded. "O-o-okay. Well, you're Anna, Anna. And that's Elsa. And that's Grandma Skadi. And you are…" He stopped. Then tilted his head to one side. Then squinted.

"You look… really… familiar," he said, "but I don't think we've met. I should probably introduce myself. Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!"

The next second, the little snowman found himself on the receiving end of two of the warmest hugs anybody could ever have wished for.

"Whoa, hey! Aw… I love you guys, too! But maybe you ought to tone it down a little in front of, you know, the new girl?"

Down in the foyer, Marshmallow lifted his head in curious surprise as the crystalline walls of the palace rang with the sound of four voices joined in jubilant laughter.

Back upstairs, Elsa was radiant with joy. "Thank you, Skadi, Fare!" she enthused. "Thank you so much. This is… Well, it's unbelievable."

"Ooh, so you're Fare?" Olaf asked, picking up on the name and considering the woman again in light of this new information. "You're a lot more real than I imagined."

"Thank you. Truth be told, I'm considerably more real than I imagined as well."

"Okay," Anna exclaimed, "now you two just _have_ to come back with us to the festival! As our personal guests, of course. It's the least we can do after this. We'll show you everything! There'll be singing and dancing and all kinds of food and fun! I know you'll enjoy it."

"No, I think not," Skadi said, although she offered a kind smile in return. "I am afraid my time alone in the north has left me rather partial to quiet days spent at home. All those crowds." She shook her head. "Perhaps another time, when I have had more of a chance to grow accustomed to people, and the people have grown a little more accustomed to the idea of me.

"But you should not let that stop you!"

Fare started, then looked at Skadi. "But..."

"I saw that wistful look on your face, girl. And I know how much time you spent inside Elsa's head, sharing her dream of someday roaming beyond the confines of her room, even as she feared to leave it. Now you have the chance to go wherever you will. Do not squander it on my account."

"But it's the middle of June," Fare protested. "It's cold up here on the mountain, but down there in Arendelle..."

"And here I thought you were the one with such a talent for remembering things," Elsa laughed. With two waves of her hand, undersized snow clouds appeared above both Fare's head and Olaf's.

"Oh, oh, look!" Olaf said, jumping from foot to foot and pointing. "We're flurry buddies!"

"But won't I make people, I don't know, nervous?" Fare asked.

"After Olaf and Polla, eternal winters, rock trolls, backstabbing foreign princes, invading grand-kings, and ancient goddesses of winter?" Anna dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand and a reassuring grin. "I doubt they'll even notice."

"So it's settled then," Elsa said in a queenly tone that brooked no argument. "And we really had better get going if we don't want to miss all the very best that Arendelle has to offer!"

"Yay! We're going to a party!" shouted Olaf as he skipped out of the room on his way to the staircase. "Can Marshmallow come too?"

Elsa and Anna exchanged worried looks. "Well..." Elsa began.

"He _has_ been stuck up here for an entire year," Anna pointed out. "And you know the children would love him."

"Alright, fine," Elsa relented. "At least nobody will be able to throw snowballs at him this time of year."

A short while later, the two sisters and their three snowy friends were descending the stairs from the palace. Anna and Elsa were lagging slightly behind, while Olaf was chatting animatedly with both Fare and Marshmallow.

"So this time, I think I'm going to pick one that's a little more sophisticated," he said, gesturing to the middle of his face. "One that makes me look dashing and debonair. One that says, 'This is a snowman who knows how to buckle his swashes!' That is, if I wore swashes. Or pants."

Then abruptly, in the middle of the stairs, Anna stopped dead in her tracks. She was wearing the strangest expression on her face.

"Anna?" Elsa asked, a little concerned.

"I just realized something," Anna said. "We finally did it!"

Elsa's mouth quirked into a sideways smile. "We've done a lot of things lately. You're going to need to be a little more specific."

"Don't you see, Elsa? After all these years, we finally did it! Together!" She grabbed her sister by the shoulder and turned her to face the bottom of the stairs, where Olaf was continuing to expound on his plans for a new nose. Wrapping her hands around her sister's arm, she pulled herself close to Elsa's side. "We did it," she said again with a contented squeeze and a huge grin that could easily have belonged to her five-year-old self.

"We finally built a snowman!"

~ THE END ~

* * *

 **AFTERWORD:**

 **I feel like you should know that this was not the story I originally set out to write. I can say this with some certainty because, when I first embarked upon _Echoes_ _of Falling Snow_ , I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.**

 **Okay, so maybe that's not entirely true. I had a few, very basic ideas that I knew I wanted to explore. But I certainly had not planned for this to turn into a sprawling, multivolumed, cross-generational epic. It literally became one of those stories that grew in the telling. And while I did intentionally begin dropping seeds for things to come as I started to get some sense of where the whole business was heading, a lot of the moments that might have appeared to be the result of carefully thought out, long-term planning were actually just me remembering things I'd casually thrown in earlier and then stumbling upon serendipitous ways to call back to them. It's more than a little humbling to consider the amount of sheer good luck that's allowed this entire story to hold together as well as it has.**

 **So now here we are, nearly three years and three-quarters of a million words down the road from where we began, and you can at last see for yourselves how all the pieces have come together – even if some were still moving around up until the very last minute. Heaven knows it wasn't perfectly told. I certainly recognize that I'm a much different writer now than I was when I started. I'd like to think that different might mean better, but that's ultimately something my readers will have to judge for themselves. All I can honestly say is that, as a chronic perfectionist, I always worked hard to deliver the very best story that I could, even if I rarely felt that any of it was actually good enough.**

 **While I chose to split this saga into three books, it could easily have been more like six or seven based on the word count of a typical fantasy novel. I'm frankly flabbergasted that I managed to write that much, but I suspect this probably means that I won't be going back and attempting to tackle Book 3 any time soon. I simply don't feel like I have that much left in the tank after all this. Plus, after everything I've put them through, I don't know that I could continue to torture these poor girls like that, especially during what would probably be their absolute darkest times following their parents' deaths. And on top of it all, I really don't have anything resembling a story worked out for those missing years – just disconnected scenes strewn about here and there. Granted, I started this whole enterprise with even less than that, but I made up for it with energy and ambition that I'm afraid has been largely spent.**

 **That said, there remains the possibility that I might at least dip into that time period with some scattered one-shots. There's one in particular that I really do want to write, because I think it would be a lot of fun for both me and my readers. So we'll see. We might not have completely seen the end of the _Falling Snow_ universe just yet!**

 **But for now, before I finally draw the curtain on this chapter of Anna and Elsa's lives; before we bid farewell to Kristoff, Olaf, Sven, and the rest of their quirky little family; before we wave goodbye to new friends like Rohl, Fritz, Josef, Skadi, Fare, and Marie; there is one more thing that I absolutely have to say.**

 **Thank you, dear readers! Thanks to those who've been with me since the very beginning. Thanks to the ones who joined up along the way. Thanks even to the ones who may stumble across these stories and read them months from now. It's only because of you that I actually managed to arrive here at this Afterword. If I had been doing this solely for myself, I feel certain that I would have abandoned it some time ago during any one of my many crises of confidence. Yet because of you – because of your kind words, your encouragement, and even your silent support – I can actually step back now, point at this mammoth work of fictional prose, and say with at least a certain amount of pride, "I did that. I actually finished it. And you know… maybe it wasn't half bad."**

 **So from one twisted little fixer-upper to each and every one of you: go out and find your own place, hold on to your dreams, test your limits and break through, stuff some chocolate in your face, raise each other up and round each other out, don't let the frostbite bite… and maybe try to make today just a little more perfect for someone you love.**

 **Yours now and always,  
Artoo Emnaught**


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